


Abandoned

by Redfire_Dragon



Series: Gendered Mechs AU [1]
Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: And Jazz doesn't want to take advantage of anything, Awkward Romance, Because of Complications, Cybertronian Genders, Early in the war, Especially not Prowl, Fluff, Giant mechanical spiders, Guilt, Horror, Jerks being Jerks, Loyalty, More Fluff, Racism, Romance Failure, Secret Admirer, Teasing, Temporary crippling, Temporary imprinting, robot gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2018-12-20 19:57:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11928141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redfire_Dragon/pseuds/Redfire_Dragon
Summary: "Again Prowl considered throwing Jazz onto his back, transforming, and driving for it, but the results of his calculations were the same as before. Even assuming the Torquetantula's top speed was not much greater than what it had displayed chasing down the two Decepticons that had tried to flee earlier (and had been subsequently caught and killed horribly) Prowl would not be able to outrun it without losing Jazz. That was unacceptable. Jazz couldn't die, hehadto survive. So unless he woke soon they were both going to be eaten."Nothing like a supposedly extinct Ancient Horror to show a bot what they are really made of.Near death experiences are a great way to start a relationship right?If only it hadn't triggered some unpleasant dormant code and made everythingcomplicated





	1. Death on Eight Legs

The massive Torquetantula was huge. To say it was bigger than expected would have implied that he had considered the supposedly extinct species long enough to form expectations, which most certainly was not the case. Perhaps if the war had not happened he would have in one of his exercises... But no, the war had started and his battle computer had been too busy planning and calculating for endless _real_ scenarios to waste time or processing power on the prohibitively improbable. Though clearly it was not impossible, Prowl thought with raw humor as he watched the enormous spider-bot pick up the struggling screaming Seeker, grasp it tightly in barbed mandibles, and bite into one of the main energon lines to feed. Soon, he knew, the struggles would weaken and the screams would go silent, and eventually all that would remain would be the greyed out husk the mecharachnid would carefully eviscerate, methodically removing each and every fuel line in its relentless quest for energon. He didn't know these things from the research of others but from his own observations as the giant spider-bot fed on the downed bots one by one. And he and Jazz were next.

Prowl increased the pings to Jazz's processor from one ever nanoklik to three, about as fast as his own processor could manage and almost exactly in time with the tremors that ran through his frame. What a thing to notice. His whole frame trembled, especially his sensor wings, with terror and the need to run, to escape, but the moment he moved the Torquetantula would be after him, catch him, just as it had the others who had tried to escape. He couldn't make a move until they were ready.

Get up Get up Get up! He thought as he continued frantically pinging Jazz. He couldn't, couldn't leave without Jazz. Every time his battle computer tried to calculate a scenario where he simply abandoned his fellow Autobot he cut the calculations suffering a minor processor crash. He wondered if the reaction was based on simple loyalty or personal feelings, or the protector femme code he might or might not have inherited from his carrier. The strain of prolonged mortal terror and fight or flight protocols screaming for action without release was getting to him, making him feel light-helmed while delirium warnings flashed and he pinged Jazz over and over so fast his processor threatened to overheat. It was the strain of it all that kept triggering these strange thoughts, observations of entirely irrelevant things. Like that jagged piece of metal that had once been attached to the Decepticon tank that had been the Torquetantula's first victim and how it was shaped like the enforcer main office in

No. Focus. He forced himself to review the situation, letting the familiar routine of thought patterns ground him. Skirmish. Jazz, Wildride, Breakback and him cut off from the rest of the forces. The Torquetantula rising up from a hidden den, how it took down three Decepticons in a flurry of movement before anyone could react. How its attention had zeroed in on the fast moving Seekers, blasting them with a strange webbing that clung to armor while the long deceptively spindly legs stabbed through frantic grounders, Decepticons and Breakback, pinning them quite literally. The explosion as one of the frantic Seekers set off some heavy ordinance, literally blowing himself to bits.

When Prowl's sensors had finished rebooting the only other Autobot still functional had been Jazz, sprawled in a damaged heap closer to and less shielded from the blast. Moving slowly in a continuous flow, precisely calculated to avoid detection by the motion seeking optics of the Torquetantula, Prowl had made his stealthy way over to the silent frame of his friend. He had watched and listened as the ancient monster had fed on then manged the Decepticons. He watched and learned, even as his tanks churned with fear and revulsion, as the screams of the dying and the sickening cracks and thuds of frames being torn apart tore at both spark and audials locking his fight or flight protocols and every other survival mechanism in a shrieking state of high alert. Every line of his base survival code had rebelled, still rebelled, against the slowness, the stillness, as he crept over to where Jazz lay. But he knew any sudden movement would draw the giant spider-bot's fatal attention, knew how fast it could run, of the barbed metal webbing it fired with frightening accuracy, of the ring of optic sensors that circled its bulbous body peering every which way. He'd hoped that perhaps playing dead could save their lives but after watching it find and consume two others who'd had the same idea and even Wildride's greyed out husk he knew that wasn't an option.

Their only hope was to run and he would not abandon Jazz to this monster. Even now he stood between the unconscious mech and the towering mecharachnid, gun in hand, sensor wings raised high, doing his best to block Jazz from its view so that when he did rouse, the movements would be hidden from the motion seeking optics. He flatly refused to consider that Jazz might not wake. He wished he could shake him or kick him or even scream him back into consciousness but that would draw the monster's attention so he was stuck with just pinging him over and over again and praying Jazz would wake before it was too late.

Again Prowl considered throwing Jazz onto his back, transforming, and driving for it, but the results of his calculations were the same as before. Even assuming the Torquetantula's top speed was not much greater than what it had displayed chasing down the two Decepticons that had tried to flee earlier (and had been subsequently caught and killed horribly) Prowl would not be able to outrun it without losing Jazz. That was unacceptable. Jazz couldn't die, he had to survive. So unless he woke soon they were both going to be eaten by the Torquetantula, which was now working to remove and drain all the fuel lines of the greyed husk that was all that remained of his prey.

It was funny the things you thought about when you were about to die. Like the clumsy notes, the not quite poems he'd written but never shared, or the tiny tokens, little gifts slipped under doors or into a desk; treats, energon, music, the occasional painkiller chip or toy. Always carefully thought out in both content and delivery so the special ops agent wouldn't be able to track down the source. Naturally Prowl had never been able to see the mech's initial reactions to his gifts with his focus on secrecy, but many times after dropping off a gift he'd find that sad or hurt or angry Jazz had returned to his normal happy self, the bounce returned to his step at least in part. Funny to stand there staring at your imminent death and be regretting never leaving a name or a note, to regret never having confessed your feelings to the unconscious mech you were about to die beside. All the more ironic for if Jazz had been awake to confess to they would be fleeing not talking and the words would still never be said.

But it was too late for anything now. The Torquetantula had finally finished sucking dry every last fuel line from the Seeker's shredded frame. Now its many optics were scanning the ground for anything else, for them. The large bomb from earlier had damaged two of its horrible legs but inflicted no serious harm on the ancient horror, and all he had was a standard plasma rifle. Prowl might not be able to kill or even cripple the creature but he'd be pit spawn if he didn't at least shoot out some of those awful optics before it descended on them. A tremble came to his sensor wings, not of fear now, the time for sparkclenching mortal terror was past, but of grief for all the could-have-beens and the loss of Jazz's light to their already too dark world. His visual feed distorted slightly, cleanser fluid leaking unnoticed from his optics as he took aim, battle computer selecting each of the half dozen optics he could see as targets, calculating the most efficient attack pattern. He couldn't save Jazz but at least the mech wouldn't die alone. Prowl would stay by his side to the bitter end.

Something touched his shoulder and only an act of supreme self control kept Prowl from jumping and drawing the attention of the mecharachnid's motion seeking optics. Sensor in his wings flared. He'd been so focused on aiming he hadn't noticed Jazz finally onlining or slowly getting up behind him. A flare of pure relief and joy overtook his field in a brief glorious moment only to be swallowed up by hope and terror, ironically renewed by the sudden possibility they might survive after all. The emotions that should have rocked and distracted him were thrust aside for now, tactical programming taking over to seek the paths most probable to lead to survival. {Can you drive?} Prowl sent to Jazz over comms. They had little time before the Torquetantula zeroed in on them but the moment they moved the race for survival would begin. So close to his sensor wings it was easy for Prowl to 'see' the tiny twitch of a nod Jazz made, though the bot accompanied it with a tiny squeeze of the hand on Prowl's shoulder.

Jazz's other hand, hidden from the spiderbot by Prowl's motionless frame, reached across to grip Prowl's upper arm. He let himself be pulled into a half spin as Jazz turned and launched himself back in one smooth effortless movement. Prowl half stumbled, frame slightly unsteady from the prolonged stress, but Jazz was already moving so fast and his firm grip dragged him along. Three steps, four, and the hand was gone, Jazz leaping into his transformation sequence, Prowl following only a moment behind. Tires hitting the ground, the bounce of shocks, a spark chilling shriek from the predator behind them as they raced to hit top speed. {Avoid webbing blasts.} Prowl warned tersely. A thunder of giant pistoning legs behind them as the spider-bot took up pursuit. If they could avoid being ensnared, if the damage to the Torquetantula's legs slowed it enough, they might be able to get away. There was a whump of a firing cannon and both Autobots swerved avoiding the fired netting then came back together again, Prowl sticking close to Jazz's side but hanging back a little so he could better sense and see the other, confirming his living presence again and again. The spider-bot was not catching up. Hope flared and the cannon went off again, it had to have a limited

Pain exploded across Prowl's plating as he swerved and he was yanked to an immediate stop, plating nearly ripped off and tires burning as they tried to impel him forward. A scream tore free of his vocalizer and his engine stalled, tires coming to a stop as he paused, dazed, trying to take stock of his situation. Now he knew how the spider-bot's netting clung so well to armor, the links and cables that formed the web were covered in a mix of powerful magnets and barbed hooks that were driven into the plating by the initial impact and hooked onto every steam and crevice. Half the net was splayed over his roof and back half while the rest had hit the ground, binding him to it causing the sudden yank to a stop, embedded hooks shredding his plating. He was in agony but that did not change the danger they were in.

Desperately Prowl threw himself forward, tires shrieking, tearing his plating and sensitive internals the hooks had latched onto beneath. Damage warnings filled his HUD and there was a sudden jerking crash as Jazz skidded into the netting from the side, partially dislodging it from the ground but getting it stuck to the saboteur instead. Engines snarled and the tires shrieked as the two Autobots tried to pull free, but the webbing held fast. Jazz reversed his direction suddenly, pulling back out of the webbing the way he'd slammed in. With a squeal of metal he broke free, spinning a brief half circle that left his alt mode facing Prowl's nose to nose only a length apart. Deep oozing tears marred his side where he had slammed into the barbed net. Prowl let his engine idle a moment, staring at Jazz, hearing the Torquetantula closing in.

Jazz threw himself into reverse, executing a sharp spin while masterfully shifting to drive, then shot off like a rocket without looking back.

Prowl felt his spark shatter. He had known it would happen, his battle computer showing him exactly how it would play out beforehand, but it still felt like the deepest betrayal and abandonment. Prowl never would have abandoned him, had pretty much demonstrated that before, but Jazz had abandoned him. Abruptly pain and despair were swallowed up by roaring rage and hate only to be slammed and locked down by iron will, shackled by logic. Prowl knew what sort of mech Jazz was, he was a survivor, he knew when to make a desperate last stand and when to cut his losses and vanish. It was his nature and ditching Prowl had been the logical choice too. Prowl would have done it too (probably) if it had been anyone but Jazz. It was a waste for both of them to die when one could escape. No this was good and right, Jazz should be commended for ~~abandoning~~ ~~leaving him behind~~ for making the right choice. Prowl's spark collapsed a little, crumbling away, but he forced himself to focus through the blinding pain, both physical and emotional.

Where was that hate? that anger? He needed it now, focusing it on the approaching predator, compressing it, forging it with his iron will into a weapon he could use. He had never used his emotions in battle before, an enforcer did not hunt with malice, and logic had always served him well. But logic alone could not get his agonized frame moving. He felt the raw emotions run through his lines like molten metal, scorching him from the inside. It did not stop the pain as he had expected, but fed on it, something dark and primal activating deep in his code as he focused all the rage and pain and hate on the hulking monster. This creature had threatened her mate.

Prowl transformed, the webbing tangling in shifting metal, pulling tight, shredding, chewing up wires, and pulling chunks free as Prowl shrieked out his rage. His gun was gone, dropped when transforming earlier, so he snatched at everything in range, hurling twisted broken hunks of metal at the Torquetantula with pinpoint accuracy, trajectories precisely calculated by the tactical computer. Wrath had swallowed him but he rode atop it, the hot emotions lifting him up, supporting him like his tires on the road while his processor ran fast and clear, shattering through damage and error warnings effortlessly as he calculated every strike, the balance and aerodynamics of every grasped bit of debris he could use as a weapon. He would make it pay, he would protect, Jazz would escape. Unable to reach any more projectiles he turned to his subspace for ammunition as the massive predator loomed over him. It didn't matter he had never told Jazz, better this way, he would never know, the guilt would haunt him less if not at all. It was better this way, Jazz was the better bot. He had a good spark, an Autobot spark, the Autobots needed him far more than they needed another cold sparked tactician like Prowl. It was better this way because Jazz would live.

The spider-bot lifted him up and he screamed as a hard probosces was slammed into the main fuel line of his throat, as the poison burned through his lines, as the world went dark.

Primus let it be enough, let Jazz live.


	2. Failure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wow this ended up being pretty long before I even got to what I was intending to write, so I'm gonna post this now and post the rest when I write it. For some reason I'm writing 3 (and a half) fics all at once right now, trying to update weekly. I have no idea _how_ that happened. But hey, if people are enjoying reading still it can't be all bad right?

_Jazz raced over the uneven ground bouncing on his shocks hard enough they twinged, yanking and compressing hard enough to sprain as he hit a rut then up and over a small shelf of a thick metal platform fallen long ago. He should not be driving so fast over such a debris field, he should have been traversing it at half his current breakneck speed, or better yet, on his pedes. But running was not fast enough, driving hardly was, no matter how hard he pushed his engine and his shocks screamed at the abuse of travel over the shattered cluttered terrain._

_He wasn't going to make it._

_No, that was defeatist, he **was** going to make it. He had to believe it, had to believe that there would be enough of the tactician left to rescue at the end of his journey. It hadn't been even a full joor since he'd left the praxian behind, surely he could hold out **that** long. Except Jazz knew he couldn't. He might have held out far more than that while Jazz was unconscious but the Torquetantula still hadn't spotted him at that point. He'd been caught when Jazz had left him, had abandoned him, and the screams that had followed Jazz's fleeing frame..._

_No!_

_He had to hope, had to believe that there was **some**  way he could have survived. Jazz had gotten help, some front-liners and a tank, some heavy artillery, they were going to kill that awful beast and save the bot who'd risked his own neck to save him._

_Ahead he could see the entrance to the Torqutantula's den, and the endless field of shattered and mangled frames, of the monster's previous meals. Shards of dead grey metal and shredded fuel lines were everywhere, tossed and spread about carelessly. There was little left to be recognized, it would be hard, almost impossible to identify any of the deceased._

_Jazz ran directly over the Torquetantula's den, transforming as the covering slab tilted upward, opening as if on hinges, so he landed on his pedes instead of the roof of his alt mode. The mecharachnid scrambled out of its horrible hole and the front liners far behind opened fire, rockets and concentrated plasma beams striking at the relatively small bulbous body held high above the ground by the long spindly legs. Jazz pulled his own gun from his subspace, opening fire, concentrating on the monster's horrible optics, aiming to annoy more than injure. He was the most agile of the group, his part was to draw the monster out, and keep it busy while the heavy hitters beat it down, broke through the tough armor from a distance, out of range of the deadly legs and mandibles and terrible barbed webs._

_Jazz danced around the bot, transforming back and forth, racing beneath its bulbous body, shooting out optics, blasting bundles of wires exposed by previous attacks. But his processor was on the little tactician who had stood between him and certain death, hiding him from this ancient horror while he was **helpless**. He had to have survived! Had to! Jazz couldn't fail him after all that. He couldn't have died just because Jazz had abandoned him. The Torqutantula's thick armored plating had wide cracks in it now, and a well aimed rocket lodged deep in its unprotected inner workings. But Jazz didn't watch it fall, he was over to the den in a moment, wrenching at the covering partly propped up by debris, squirming his way in to the only place left the tactician could be. It was dark and cold and disgusting, his headlights seeming barely to light up the horrible dark hole. Endless piles of mangled components and shards of metal and tubing mixed with barbed webbing, the shattered remains of thousands of bots and mechanimals, grey and lifeless and unidentifiable._

_And crammed up against a wall, lying on a heap of greyed out remains, was a small grey frame, slender sensor wings twisted and maimed, narrow frame shredded and mangled, primary fuel lines ripped, torn, drained dry._

_No._

_**No.** _

_**NOOOOO!** _

 

Jazz woke with a start thrashing around, optics onlined and searching the unfamiliar room frantically, for a couple kliks before he settled. Just a dream, just a dream, just a

A connection fired in his brain module and his helm snapped to the side. There. There was a brief pause and then he let out a long slow sigh, frame relaxing. There was the tactician, Prowl, lying mangled but alive on the medical berth just in front of him. It had been just a dream. They had made it in time. Jazz stood, moving his chair closer to the berth before sitting again and carefully took one of the tactician's white hands into his black ones, needing to actually feel the mech's cool metal to reassure himself that he really was still online.

The guilt was still there though.

It was silly really, he had never known the mech before, just some stupid tactician, a number runner. Tacticians were not soldiers, they were the processors that ran the finicky details of the war, calculating strategy and information and scrap while soldiers and agents did all the _real_ work. Tacticians ran the numbers, decided who would die and who would live, they didn't often go into actual battle and when they did they stayed back deep in the ranks where they could watch, receive reports, and direct. Nothing more nothing less. Just the glorified calculators that were a necessary evil in war. And yet when Jazz'd gotten cut off from the main force, having gone to set off some explosives deep behind enemy lines only to be discovered as he tried to extricate himself, right as he'd gotten to the point where he was resigned to finally returning to The Well, this idiot had showed up with Wildride and Breakback barking orders like a pompous sergeant.

What kind of number runner did that? Oh sure he'd gotten the dismissive 'you are a valuable asset' thing, and it had looked like they were going to be able to get back, looping back and around empty territory away from the main fighting, if they could just avoid the Seekers. But still, the tactician, this Prowl, had come after him, even getting a small escort to get them back to safety. But then they and their pursuers, a group who had been trying to circle around to cut the four Autobots off in their retreat, had gotten just _too_  close to what turned out to be a Torquetantula den and all Pit had broken loose.

Jazz remembered onlining to a hundred thousand pings and a terrible processor ache only to find the small praxian hovering over him, hiding him from the Torquetantula's gaze. The glitch was just standing there with his gun pointed at the monster, as if it would have any effect, as if a stupid number cruncher could stand against one of the ancient horrors.

And Jazz had left him behind.

The stubborn bot had stood there, sensor wings angled upward to hide Jazz, somehow completely ignored by the mecharachnid, like a glitch with a death wish when he _should_  have driven for it when some of the Decepticons had recovered enough to make a break for it, or _at any point really_. But he'd just been standing there, trembling, his field awash with terror and desperation and some strut deep stubbornness he wouldn't have expected out of the unassuming wall-flower of a tactician.

And Jazz had left him behind.

Jazz stared down at the small white hand cupped in his dark ones. The Praxian wasn't really all that much smaller than him, though when you were less than what was usually considered full size, even if you weren't a minibot, every micrometer seemed to matter. And it wasn't as if the tactician was physically imposing, he didn't even have a warrior's armor, just enforcer grade, not a lot heavier than a scout's. Still with the sensor wings the praxian would easily out-mass him. But he _seemed_  smaller. Especially wrecked and ruined like this, especially standing so small and frail between Jazz and certain horrible death. The same horrible death that Jazz had left, no, _abandoned_ him to. Jazz noticed his hands had clenched down and forced himself to relax. The praxian was no longer in medical stasis, only in recharge now. He'd be naturally waking sometime soon but Jazz didn't want to disturb him. The mech would need all the rest he could get and waking would not be a pleasant experience for him, even with all the pain-blockers the medics had put him on.

And how would he react to seeing Jazz there? After what he'd done...

"Oh he'll be glad to see the one who saved his life." Some had reassured him, not knowing that Prowl was the one who'd saved _his_  life first, twice at that, and done a _much_  better job of it. No one knew, not really, Jazz had been sparing on the details, too humiliated to admit what he'd done, admit what a coward he'd been. He knew a bit about Torquetantulas, he listened to the seeming tall tales of scouts and had known that they were not entirely extinct, though he never thought to see one himself, had known enough about them to know that with an abundance of food the monsters would first fill their tanks then administer a powerful poison to the rest of their living prey to store for later.

He wanted to tell himself he'd known that the Torquetantula had glutted itself on Decepticons and the two frontliners the tactician had brought, and that he'd known that the beast wouldn't kill the tactician right off, that he would be put into a forced stasis and still be alive to rescue when Jazz managed to return with help. But Jazz knew the truth. In that moment, when he'd been part caught in the webbing having tried to get the tactician free and realized it wouldn't work, and then again when he'd pulled himself free and had been sitting there nose to nose with the tactician's sleek unadorned black and white vehicle mode, all he had been thinking about was saving his own plating. He'd looked the other mech square in face and abandoned him. He could still hear the screams, ringing in his audials as he had fled like the craven coward he was. He had a feeling they would haunt him till the end of his functioning.

But he _had_  gone back. That had to count for something right? And Prowl had still been alive, though a beaten broken shredded mess. But maimed was better than dead right? And he wouldn't have been a whole lot better off if Jazz had found a way to unhook the net and they'd escaped then right? Except most of the damage was from transforming _while_  tangled in the barbed net. Jazz had never seen anything like it, it seemed a miracle the bot hadn't bled out entirely from the wounds. The medics said it was a miracle they'd been able to save his legs at all. It had taken nearly an orn for them to extricate the barbed chains and cables from wound around and through every part and piece of his lower half and twisted across his midsection and lower back even catching the lower edge of one of the praxian's sensor wings. Transforming must have been agony, how someone as wimpy as a tactician had managed to push through, yanking and dragging the strands so tight they tore through him right down to struts, even gouging them in places. Well, Jazz would never think of a tactician as wimpy again. Or at least not this tactician.

But why had he done it? Why transform when so entangled? He was a tactician right? Tacticians were supposed to be _smart_ , had to be or they wouldn't keep their job, so he _had_  to have known what it would do. So why had he transformed? It wasn't as if he could have escaped in his root mode, an Autobot's only hope to escape something like that was driving at top speed and after transforming the web into every component of his legs there was no way the mech could've even _crawled_. The idiot had dropped his gun when the two had made a break for it and he doubted the tactician would have another in his subspace, and they'd found no evidence of one either. So why bother?

Why bother with any of it?

Why bother with _him_?

There was something more to this, much more. He just wasn't seeing it yet. Maybe that, as much as the guilt, was why he had stayed here, stubbornly watching over the ruined tactician, from the moment he'd been allowed out of a medical berth himself. Why no matter how much medics yelled he refused to leave his silent vigil. There was something going on here, something more than met the eye. His instincts as an ops agent edged at him, demanding answers.

Jazz rubbed his thumbs in little circles on the tactician's hand idly, feeling how the metal had warmed under his touch. The whole frame was warming, systems coming online, booting up slowly after prolonged stasis and severe shock. Soon the little tactician would wake, and Jazz still wasn't sure what to say, or how to say it. Perhaps there were questions he would ask, but after what Prowl had done, he hardly owed Jazz any answers. Instead it was Jazz who owed, owed deeply, perhaps far far more than all the apologies in all of Cybertron could repay.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by the very talented MadLennox, I am a very spoiled writer
> 
> There is a reason Jazz is having nightmares


	3. Recall and Reprogramming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "As Tolkien implied of his dwarves, Discworld dwarfs of both sexes have beards. However, while Tolkien stated that female dwarves are rare, and disguise themselves as male when they must travel, female Discworld dwarfs are common, but are traditionally indistinguishable from males at all times. Dwarfs prefer not to spend much time on the subject; the dwarfish language has a gender neutral pronoun, usually rendered as "he" when speaking human languages. Dwarfish courtship is an incredibly tactful affair, primarily concerned with finding out which gender the other dwarf is. Despite the awkwardness that comes of this, it is traditionally considered rude to discuss female dwarfs in conversation."  
> ~https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarfs_(Discworld) Terry Pratchett's Discworld

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hm.. this didn't end up going quite as I expected. Oh well. Enjoy.  
> Also, this is what happens when I get too many comments... wrote the whole dang chapter in one day. I don't know how that works. Except that comments->Energon cubes->writing

Prowl came online very slowly. Boot protocols were tangled and snarled, code conflicts fighting with an endless heap of warnings and error messages for run time. And the code was changing too. There was something disturbing about that, and as his consciousness began to wake he felt a deep dread building inside him. Something... something was changing him. Something had been installed since he'd last booted up and now it was _changing_  him. He could feel priority trees being modified, rebalanced, reaction protocols rewritten. Prowl struggled, trying to stop the process, trying to crash the code that was changing him, but he wasn't awake enough yet and his processor was drowning in error messages and damage warnings, clouding his processor, masking the threads that were rewriting him. A groan escaped his vocalizer. He had to stop it, had to preserve his self, his personality matrix, don't let it change who he was.

Then everything stalled as the pain hit.

"Prowl?" He knew that voice, though it had never spoken his name before. It sounded worried, and that too was unusual. What was the name that went to that voice? Jazz? For a moment he pondered over the designation, knowing it should mean something to him but unable to find the correct file.

Jazz! Prowl's optics flared to life, power rushing through every wire and circuit as every system raced to see which could hit fully active first. Jazz here!? Medical! Medbay? Jazz here? Dimly he heard the clattering of a chair falling over, sensed a frame rise up to loom over him, but already his strained systems were crashing again and then his sensor net went completely dark once again.

Prowl stayed in the darkness. It didn't hurt there, and Jazz wasn't there, and it wasn't so blasted confusing. Again he became aware of the rouge code modifying his base code and turned his attention to stop it. He couldn't undo it, not yet, not now, but he quickly set out a search parameter, seeking out and cataloging all the parts of his code that had been changed. He didn't yet know what the changes would mean for him, what exactly the new code had done to him, but he would at least know _what_  had been corrupted. What he found painted a grim picture indeed. Pit. It had changed just about everything. By how much he couldn't tell, or in what way, but there was very little it hadn't tainted. Who had done this to him, and how? Looking at this mess he could very well have been reprogrammed into being a Decepticon. He ran a check. No, Decepticons were still classified as the enemy. And, unless his memories had been altered, the faction symbols still had their proper associated meanings. The tightness of his spark uncoiled a little in relief. It seemed the _worst_ case scenario had been avoided. That or whatever had modified him had done too thorough a job for him to track, which seeing as he had managed to crash the code before it had entirely finished, was unlikely (6.296% probability).

Okay, so what had happened? It was difficult, almost impossible, to run the processor without the rest of the frame. If the sensor net went dark it usually took consciousness with it. But Prowl's unusual design allowed temporary running with it off (though any processor robbed of input of the sensors would quickly devolve into madness).

Priority 1: Why was Jazz there?

Prowl's processor stuttered to a halt. That was _not_  priority 1. It should be to find out how he had gotten the unfamiliar code installed that had rewritten him. He tried to set that as his first priority.

Priority 1: Is Jazz unharmed?

Pit, what was this? Yes, he was in the medbay. Yes, Jazz was as well. Yes, it was possible that Jazz was badly damaged as well. Why had Jazz been there? It wasn't as if the special ops had ever shown any interest in him before. As far as he knew Jazz didn't even know he existed.

That was irrelevant at the moment. Prowl had to find out what happened fir

Priority 1: Seek after Jazz's health.

Prowl frantically shuffled at codes, pushed at priority trees, and tried to run repair protocols. Nothing would budge. An alert came up requesting either re-initialization of his sensor net or full shut down. This in between state wasn't a safe place for any, even if it did give Prowl some extra time to think without distractions. Fine.

Priority 2: Review what happened immediately before previous deactivation.

This was accepted by his altered coding and he snuck in that he would simply see to priority 2 first. His logic accepted it as the sensible course, as knowing the background would allow better use of time and effort, and aid understanding the current situation his mostly offlined frame was in.

Battle. Directing from behind lines. Jazz reporting in that he'd been discovered, being pursued, unable to return safely. Grabbing two powerful front liners, Wildride and Breakback. Going to extract Jazz before he was offlined. Finding Jazz. Torquetantula. Explosion. Everyone dying, being eaten and shredded by the Torquetantula. Horror. Stress. Terror. Determination. Standing utterly still hiding Jazz behind him from the monster. Time running out. Stress. Delirium. Determination. Last stand. Jazz's hand on his shoulder. Relief. Hope. Running. Driving. Escaping. Agony. Prowl's mostly unconscious frame flinched at the memory of the pain, and his sensor net came partially back online, dull throbbing pain that mirrored that from the memories he was reliving. Jazz trying to save him. That beautiful moment where it seemed Jazz cared about him, followed by Jazz abandoning him.

Prowl let out a groan of pain, spark crumbling anew as he relived that moment, the grief, the loss, the hopelessness. It hurt even more than the damage to his frame, then or now. Faintly he could hear a voice calling to him again, feel hands on him distantly, but he was nearing the end of the memory files, better to just push through to the end, find out how he'd gotten from trapped in that awful web about to be killed by the Torquetantula to being here in the medbay with strange code rewriting him.

Hurt by Jazz's abandonment. Upset. He'd gotten so emotional about it. But then, that was the thing about Jazz, he drew out the tactician's usually so perfectly locked down emotions. So strong, so kind, so determined, so elegant. Feeling betrayed. But then Jazz owed him nothing. There was no real connection between them. His logic that it were better Jazz abandon him, better Jazz lived than he. Yes, he agreed with all that reasoning even now. But then how? How was he still alive?

Then the burning rage hit, the need to protect Jazz, ensure the Torquetantula was slowed and distracted enough Jazz would be able to escape. Turning to the rage and hate of that threat as his last and only option to get his broken frame to move. Then that code, so deep inside him, something hidden and latent. A part of dormant femme code that flared his systems, gave him the power to run through the pain and destruction, to fight to the very last no matter the damage to self, setting all self preservation aside, all damage warnings ignored. His frame was twitching and straining, he could hear raised voices but the memories were so strong current events could hardly get through to his processor. Again he was transforming, barbed chains and cables tearing through armor and hydraulics, shredding through him, entangled and entangling. Again he was fighting, throwing everything he had at the giant monster, reliving that powerful deadly clarity, that sensation of riding on a tide of rage and pain, held up, supported, riding it. But looking back on it he could feel how he'd also been entwined in it, at the mercy of it, he wouldn't have been able to change direction, do anything against the torrent of the emotion. Was this protector femme code or the infamous berserker strain? He could barely think seized as he was be the memories, locked in for the ride as the ancient horror lifted him up. Agony shattered through him and he screamed, and screamed again and again. Probosces slammed into his main fuel line, base of his neck, plating around it shattered into bits. He wasn't aware of his hands thrashing, trying to claw at the awful wound as his frame jerked and spasmed under the strong hands and straps that held him down. He could feel the poison being pumped into his fuel lines, feel how his living energon seemed to catch fire, burning agony pumping through him.

And then he died.

Prowl's processor went blank. No thoughts, no logic, no emotion. Emptiness, with only the quiet hum of subsystems running.

Slowly a thought formed, a bubble rising to the surface, swelling then opening up. If he had died, why was he still here? Again awareness opened up again. He was in a medbay, he had survived, been reclaimed from certain death. How? He would find out. What mattered was that he was, indeed, alive. Damaged, very badly damaged from what the memory files revealed, but alive. That strange code, that dormant femme code had been triggered, installed itself, and had rewritten his base codes at the next boot time. He ran a couple quick scenarios through his battle computer. That was still functional at least.

"... natural response for those who have recently suffered severe trauma. You are lucky it was not worse, the initial reintegration of the memories can sometimes take several tries before it is complete, each time processor and frame reliving the trauma with varying degrees of violence until the event is fully processed." The voice was calm, a medic explaining a situation, Prowl's audials coming back online partway through the lecture.

"Well why'd he suddenly go still like that? His spark _stopped_ , it _STOPPED_! You _can't_  tell me that's normal." Jazz snarled. He was pacing next to the medical berth, dark hands twitching. Prowl's sensor net was awash with pain, dull and aching, and the numbness that accompanied the strongest of pain blockers. But despite the numbness and whatever his left sensor wing had been encased in, his environmental sensors were still feeding him information about his surroundings. Jazz was upset about him, that he was damaged. A faint flicker of warmth stirred in his spark despite the pain and exhaustion that was pressing down on him.

"Actually it _is_  normal whenever an injury is sustained that is so severe as to convince the processor that they have died." The medic said flatly. "We lose some of them that way. If the mind is sufficiently convinced that the frame is dead the spark can go out simply from the shock."

"What?" Jazz sounded stunned.

"Many bots fail to realize that it isn't so much the _pain_  of injuries that kills, it's the shock that follows. Pain induces movement, activity. Shock causes slowing, shutting down, sometimes to the point where the systems never come back online again." The medic said, again in that toneless voice. BrightLine. That was the medic's name. He took out a datapad and marked something. "Seeing as he's survived the initial shock of memory reintegration we'll put out an order to see if we can get those missing parts we need for the rest of his repairs."

"What!? You hadn't ordered them yet!" Jazz stopped in his pacing and seemed to turn and hiss at BrightLine.

"Your friend here is not quite a standard frame." Brightline said, making a face. The mech might as well have screamed 'he's a kindled halfbreed'. Forged often found the noncompliance of kindled frames to natural model series disturbing, as if the mixing of frame specifications that happened when a bot was cross model kindled were some obscene betrayal of their species. "We _can_  machine most of the necessary parts from standard ones but that is a lot of time and energy and we don't have anyone with such skill here." The medic said haughtily. "Besides, with the repairs made it is likely his auto repair systems will be able to take care of most of the rest."

Jazz began to sputter but Prowl spoke up before the ops agent could. "That is logical. Besides, my work does not exactly need me to be able to run. So long as I can get to my office and meetings it does not matter how long the rest of the repairs may be delayed." He said in a calm, neutral voice. He knew that the medic was exaggerating. Prowl was, like most kindled, close enough to standard models that it often required very little to get standardized parts to work. But being less than what was usually considered average size was more of a problem. The number of parts on hand for smaller models in a smaller base like this was few, especially as almost all of the mechs here were on the larger side. What parts they _did_  have for smaller models were held in reserve for those mechs who were actual warriors. Fixing the legs of a minor tactician, who's work was mostly that of the mind, was a very very low priority, especially when they had _real_  soldiers to repair. Prowl was not looking forward to seeing exactly how bad he'd managed to mangle his legs when he had transformed before. Indeed, that might be a contributing factor to BrightLine's irritation. Like many medics he had no patience for mechs who pulled stupid stunts making their injuries worse, and that was exactly what Prowl had done. Most of the damage to his legs was self inflicted, but then he hadn't been planning on surviving long enough to regret it at the time.

He considered onlining his optics but he didn't want to actually have to see Brightline's look of disdain. What his sensors reported of it was more than enough. Besides, he wasn't sure if he could face Jazz yet. He was exhausted, and he hurt everywhere. Actually seeing Jazz would cause an emotional reaction, quite a few actually, after all that had happened during the recent brush with death.

"L-logical? What the PIT!" Jazz snarled then his voice dropped to a biting sarcastic drawl as he began to pace again. "Oh, yes, it's _logical_. Why bother getting parts for a bot who's injured if he's not a combatant? It's just his _legs_  it's not like he _needs_  them." His voice dropped to a hiss by the end of his words.

"We've done what we can Jazz, now either shut up or get out. We've had enough problems from you to last metacycles." The medic growled, plating flared in aggravation.

"Jazz, don't question the medics in their work." Prowl cut in, sensing the ops agent was about to start yelling again. And yet there was also a small part of him, a part he did not wish to acknowledge, that took comfort in the other's fierce defensive words. It was as if Jazz _cared_  about him. Again he remembered hearing that voice saying his name, calling to him through the pain. 97.395% probability this change in attitude was prompted by an understanding that Prowl had risked his life to save Jazz from the Torquetantula (and less spectacularly the Decepticons).

Gratitude. Prowl would take it. Even if it was strange and uncomfortable, it was still... what? nice? gratifying? to have Jazz's attention, even if it was just for now. He wasn't nearly interesting enough to keep the ops agent's attention for long, and Prowl _knew_  how the mech felt about tacticians, but for now... for now he would let himself enjoy the warmth it brought. Perhaps this was how the universe balanced things out. He had sacrificed to save his secret love, and now his secret love was trying to protect, to help him in return. Maybe Primus had looked on his sacrifice and granted him an extension on life, and this little treat. Yes, he would enjoy this while it lasted.

Jazz picked up a knocked down chair, righted it, and threw himself into it, letting out an impatient huff. "BrightLine. What is the damage?" Prowl asked, and though his optics were still offline, he didn't miss the glance the medic threw toward the special ops, though the medic was on his 'blind' side with his left sensor wing numbed and covered.

"With him in the room?"

The automatic logical response was that it was unlikely that anything would be news to Jazz, it had to be pretty obvious what a wreck he was. But there were certain things that _were_  confidential. "Just... the simple version, non-confidential."

The medic made a couple clicking sounds, seeming to be glaring at Jazz though without his optics Prowl couldn't really read his expression. "So then you two _are_  lovers?"

Instantly both bots stiffened. "No!" Jazz half yelped "just lookin after 'im"

"No. It's just" Prowl hesitated a moment while the logical reasons behind his decision lined themselves up in his processor. "It's illogical to send him away for you to tell me what is probably already quite evident. Besides, unless I'm mistaken, Jazz is the only reason I am here at all. I should have died." _I thought I had._  "If he is intent on keeping an eye on me for now there is no point hiding anything about my condition from him. Transparency will only speed" he paused for a beat as an emotional pang went through him "his progress toward being assured of my recovery and thus an end to the emotional need to be involved." And then the attention would be over. Jazz would have fulfilled the implied debt of Prowl saving his life and things would return to normal (82.394% probability) with perhaps a small change (68.384% probability).

"What? Emotional need to be involved?" Jazz sputtered and seemed to scowl (sneer?) at him. "Spoken like a true drone." He snarled then turned his head away as Prowl flinched. Well, that wasn't anything new. Prowl had already known what the ops agent thought of tacticians, and by extension, him. Though... he hadn't heard of Jazz calling any of the other tacticians drones. Probably a combination of his job and his quiet personality then (93.574% probability).

"Well then."

"Yes." Prowl said, unable to keep the small tremor from his voice. He rebooted his vocalizer hoping it would give him the necessary control to avoid another such embarrassment. "Tell me of the damage." He said, optics onlining to watch the medic as he showed and explained all they had done.

His legs were destroyed. There hadn't been a single part that hadn't been badly damaged, even the thick struts were now brutally scarred, many parts torn literally into pieces, some of which had been lost in transport to the medbay. They had done what repairs they could, welding parts back together but had not yet replaced the armor, allowing them to monitor the healing of parts as his repair nanites did their work. He was lucky that anything of his legs had been salvageable. Without replacement parts they had done their best with what they'd had on hand. It looked like the parts were knitting back together well enough he'd be able to walk again, but not easily.

The webbing that he had transformed in had also torn across his lower back, part of his abdomen, and part of his left sensor wings. The damage in those locations wasn't half so bad as his legs but some of his internal systems had sustained damage and had been repaired. Again no replacement parts but luckily the damage had not been as bad there and thus everything important was now fully functional again. His sensor wing was tricky. They had done what they could, and replaced the metal covering that had been torn away but they did not have anyone with the skill or knowledge to repair praxian sensor wings. He was going to have to rely on his own systems to repair the damage.

The Torquetantula poison had been entirely filtered from his system, but the wound from the bite was still doing poorly. He was not to touch it. His internals were mostly repaired now but they would need time to heal. He was not to pick at the patch welded over it, no matter how much it might itch. He was not to touch the carefully welded cracks that snaked all across his chassis either. His recovery was going to be slow and they were going to be keeping him on pain blockers until his self repairs had progressed much further.

Prowl noted an undertone of true regret in the brusque medic, despite his disgust at Prowl for being kindled instead of forged, a thin line almost entirely hidden by his harsh words. They really had done their best, simply the amount of time and effort that had gone into reconstruction proved that. Replacing parts was always less time consuming, but, again, that required parts.

Prowl almost asked the medic if he'd checked Prowl's code while he was out, but knowing it was femme code that had been unleashed the last thing he wanted was to draw attention to it. No, this was something he would have to deal with himself if at all possible. It was far too sensitive, too tempting, to be trusted to anyone else. Luckily living with his battle computer and tac-net had made him good at modifying even his own code by necessity.

"Thank you BrightLine. I would not consider this good news, were it not for the fact that I should be dead." A faint smile twitched at the corner of his lips. "I am exceedingly grateful for your efforts and those of your medics. Thank you."

BrightLine grunted. "Normally I'd put you back under but you've always been a good patient." He turned to glare at Jazz. "Don't wear him out too much. He needs his rest. Indeed now that he's awake and you can see he's fine I would be _greatly obliged_  if you would remove yourself from my medbay after this visit. Permanently."

"Awww, but you'd miss me." Jazz said grinning cheekily at the medic. BrightLine just glared in response and left the private room, closing the door behind him. Prowl felt a flicker of amusement go through him as he watched Jazz, a reminder as to why he had fallen for the mech in the first place. He had such a bright spark, kind, hopeful, playful. So friendly and good, at ease among others as Prowl never was. An Autobot spark if there ever was one. He was glad the mech had recovered his humor and good mood after the anger and upset from before.

Jazz didn't look at him though, still staring after the medic, fingers drumming on his crossed arms. The mech seemed uncomfortable and that in turn was making Prowl feel uncomfortable. Why was Jazz here if it was unpleasant? Was Jazz going to leave now? He felt a hollowness inside but pushed it away. There were still faint marks of damage from the barbed net from trying to break Prowl free but no sign of anything that would prevent the mech from returning to duty. If he wished to be elsewhere why was he here at all? If he thought of Prowl as a drone why stay longer than necessary Prowl wondered bitterly.

But as he watched the other mech, sitting so close, something inside him focused in on Jazz, locking on, scanning, memorizing.

Jazz: Mate

His altered coding defined.

Mate: Protect, obey, please. Priority maximum.

Oh pit. Pit no. No no, pit no.

He could feel the tainted code curling around him, strangling him, binding him to the one defined as his mate.

Oh Pit.

He suddenly felt very... female. And for a Cybertronian, a race that had no _natural_  use for genders much less females, that was very much a bad thing. Male and female were unnecessary for a species that simply constructed it's new members by hand. There were reasons female cybertronians were so rare, there were reasons why it had become illegal in almost all of Cybertron's cities to disclose a person's gender even before the war, there were reasons why any female considered it a blessing if their frame did not have the traditional 'organic femme' shape. Most of those reasons though boiled down to the infamous femme code. Because female Cybertronians were the first, and only, 'pleasure models' that were fully sparked mechanisms, and femme code was synonymous with slave code.

And now that dormant code had awakened and latched onto Jazz as her mate, as her master, and every moment she spent around him was only entrenching it more firmly in her corrupted code.

She was so slagged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because some readers have gotten the wrong impression (which is my fault for leaning so heavily toward the dramatic) I will state this now, Prowl always has been female. 'He' was born that way. He just doesn't think of himself as female, using the gender neutral 'he' that is traditional for Cybertronians long before they invented 'gender upgrades'. He looks like in G1 cartoon more or less because his carrier was not designed with the 'organic female' shape, instead looking like a normal Cybertronian (which is considered far more attractive to most Cybertronians). Many/most female cybertronians are indistinguishable from their male counterparts and their creations inherit that trait.  
> This AU leans heavily on G1 Cartoon continuity and it shows them just assembling new Cybertronians and using Vector Sigma to get sparks to make them people. They had no need for genders and organic style procreation. The whole genders thing is still relatively new to Cybertronian civilization and as such there is a huge pile of unexpected problems (especially social problems) they are trying to work out still. Autobots especially focus on protecting female cybertronians from being used or abused and have even devoted part of their precious resources on finding ways to fix the problems (read slave code part some evil monster on the coding board put in there (ps: he/they were executed for that)) of the two dozen or so variations of the 'femme code' without destroying the part that allows the female upgrade parts to function correctly (coding is a mess, and the last thing you want is to accidentally change the coding so it automatically kills the carrier or sparkling if creation protocols are activated). More on that later in this fic, and the series as it progresses.
> 
> I couldn't think of any good reasons for female autobots to have what mammalian humans consider a feminine shape. (This thing has some well articulated thoughts on that  
> http://ask-work-hard-play-hard.tumblr.com/post/49652823262/megatron-us-dear-transformers-fandom-the ) Why would assembled mechanisms, who have no ability to procreate, be forged to look that way? And if machines _did_ figure out a way to sexually reproduce what use would they have for sexual dimorphism? It isn't something that would naturally evolve since their species were originally forged/assembled creatures and thus are _exactly_ what they are made to be. And if you go for 'can modify your own frame' thoughts, why would 'femmes' have frames that would be appealing to humans (strong overtones of mammalian female body shape) instead of doing things that would be considered 'attractive' to others of their own kind? Armor with larger gaps? Fancy kibble? Replace part of their chest piece with glass to make their 'sexy' spark more visible?
> 
> Anyway, since I couldn't come up with any _good_ reasons for why the 'female Autobots' looked the way they do, my mind came up with some _bad_ (but logical) reasons. This head cannon is the result, and will be further explained as the story progresses. Very strange, but pretty cool (and a touch twisted) AU.


	4. Frustration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Why does Prowl have to be such a... well such a pompous drone? Ugh. I didn't _mean_ to be so rude, it just sorta happened."
> 
>    
> It's okay Jazz. We still love you.  
> Even if you say Ugh too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this chapter turned into quite a war of wills. O.O well now I understand better how these two mesh (or don't I guess) I think I still managed to sneak in some fluff though.
> 
> Again... this chapter did not turn out how I expected... sheesh Brightline... adding extra drama. I'm starting to feel like these characters are alive in these worlds and I am just recording their natural actions and reactions to the circumstances that keep escalating out of my control.
> 
> I blame Jazz. He is the embodiment of unpredictable and uncontrollable. Stupid agent of chaos throwing spanners in mah works.  
> He also views the world with _way too many_ emphasis italics marks x.x  
>  And he thinks like spaghetti and his emotions are ALL OVER THE PLACE!  
> Dang it Jazz.

Jazz stared after the medic, preferring staring at the door to looking back over at Prowl. The tension in the room was palpable. It had been so peaceful when the praxian had first started to wake, why couldn't it have stayed that way?

But no, one minute the mech's systems were gently booting up and the next thing you know the bot had gone flash crash and then started seizing. Jazz had never been so glad to see their CMO as at that moment. He'd known first waking would be hard on the mech but that? He'd never seen that happen. He'd wondered if it had been in part some residual effect of the Torquetantula venom even though he'd been assured over a dozen time that there would be none, that the medics had completely cleared the mech's systems.

And the guilt had eaten at him like acid while he stood there helpless and listened to the screams and watched as the mech _died_  frame and sparkmonitor going still as horrible silence fell in the room.

And Jazz had felt as if his spark had stopped too.

It had started up again, true, but even now his spark was squeezing too hard with each pulse, rhythm strained and off beat. It shouldn't have hurt so much to see the mech apparently die. He'd seen so many die. It had to just be the guilt from abandoning the brave, self sacrificing little tactician. It wasn't like there was anything _there_. He just owed the mech. And those horrible horrible _screams_.

Ugh.

And the stupid medic acted like all of it was _normal_ , like they had bot's sparkpulses go completely flat on them _all the time_  (which _might_  be the case, this was war after all, but he would not think about _that_  right now). And then there'd been the whole blow up about the parts. What kind of medical was this where they didn't keep stocked on parts? And what sick freak of a medic didn't even bother _ordering_  necessary parts until their patient had successfully come back online without them? And then the masochistic little tactician went and _defended_  the practice, acting like it was _normal_!

Ugh.

It had all been so awful, but now, he finally had the little tactician all to himself again. He just...

He still felt too wound up to speak.

Too wound up, not upset or nervous, Jazz didn't _get_  nervous, just... wound up.

Ugh. He couldn't believe he'd called the tactician a drone. Oh Pit, what had he been thinking? But that was precisely the point wasn't it? He _hadn't_  been thinking, just mouthing off as usual. He'd been so wound up from the whole 'nearly dying' thing and then the parts argument and then so flustered when the medic suggested that he was lovers with, with _Prowl_  of all bots (gag). And then the mech had to go off on one of his pompous, _logical_ , speeches. It was enough to make any mech purge. But still...

But still....

He shouldn't have called him a drone. It was bad enough to say that about someone behind their back. To their face? Ugh. His fingers rippled, beating a staccato rhythm against his crossed arms. But seriously, what the pit was wrong with the tactician? You would think he _was_  a drone the way he talked. How could anyone be so calm and... and _rational_  after hearing that no one had bothered ordering parts for their repairs because they hadn't thought he was worth the bother?

And what the pit kind of bot decided to do away with confidentiality because (how had he phrased it?), it would allow Jazz to be more quickly assured of Prowl's recovery and end his 'emotional need to be involved'? Ugh. That was drone speak if he'd _ever_  heard it. And the glitch had said it all in that same passionless monotone he always used ( _except when giving orders_  Jazz recalled with a faint shiver). Faced with that how could Jazz be expected to have any reaction other than calling him a drone?

He still felt guilty about it though, his reasoning insufficient to clear his conscience.

"You came back."

Jazz felt the tight knot inside him relax a bit, shoulders returning to their normal position as he finally turned away from the door back to the tactician. "Yes." This was what he wanted to the other to focus on. Hide the cowardice, focus on the rescue. "I've... heard of Torquetantulas before. If there's enough food they have this poison that'll knock a mech out and they store ya in their den for later."

One white hand went up to touch the patch over the wound where the mecharachnid had bitten the tactician. The bot shivered a bit. "And you knew I'd be saved for later?" A flat monotone flavored only by a clinical curiosity.

Pit Jazz wished he could read that voice. Prowl just... he was so _stiff_ , so uptight, so hard to _read_. How was Jazz supposed to know how to spin things if he couldn't read his audience? And how the pit did a mech sound so calm talking about such a traumatic attack? He had to be upset, it had to trouble him, at least a little. Pit, Jazz had just watched the mech flail and _scream_  like a dying cybershrieker just reintegrating the memories less than a joor ago. He _was_  traumatized, he _was_  upset, even if it wasn't obvious now.

He should play the hero, comfort and strength. But Jazz didn't feel strong at that moment and his guilty conscience weighed heavily on him. Truth. Some of it anyway. "No, I didn't know." He said bluntly and noticed the tiny flinch in the tactician's frame, but only because he had been watching for it. Validation. The mech _was_  upset. There was _someone_  in there, not just a drone, someone who had been hurt by Jazz abandoning him. He could work with that. Now to comfort and explain. "But I had hope." He followed up on his first declaration quickly in a bright tone that turned back to the serious as he continued. "There were a lot of dead Decepticons by the time I woke up. I couldn't get you out of the net, going for help and hoping it had taken the edge off its hunger enough before it came after us, that you wouldn't become instant lunch, was only course available." He watched Prowl intently.

The tactician had offlined his optics part way through the explanation, as if that would help hide his emotions. Yes, the tactician was definitely obsessed with hiding his emotions. Was it to preserve his reputation as a cold-sparked unfeeling drone? Was it a cultural thing? Was it to create distance between him as a tactician and those mechs whose lives his plans so carelessly snuffed? Jazz could feel the disgust rising through him, bleeding through into his field and contorting his expression. Think about something else. He was trying to make up with the stupid number cruncher, he couldn't do that if he kept reminding himself of all the reasons he hated tacticians.

"That was the logical choice." Prowl said, voice dull and flat.

"What?" Oh right, going for help and hoping. Jazz frowned, he hadn't had time talk up his angle, the mech should still be upset. Prowl was _skipping steps_  to the formula.

Prowl's optics came back online and he focused on Jazz, expression unreadable. When he spoke it was in a quick clipped tones. A sterile, analytical report voice that would make any soldier drone proud. "It was the logical choice. Remaining would have only ensured two deaths and there is 68.294% probability the Autobots would have remained unaware of the Torquetantula den so relatively close to our base. That alone would have caused serious problems and many more deactivation before it could be resolved. I am deeply indebted to you for coming back in time to save my life. The probability of my survival was extremely low and there is a 81.293% probability that gathering sufficient backup to mount a rescue quickly enough to retrieve me alive was quite a difficult task." Jazz stared at the tactician, the light behind his visor flickering slightly.

Prowl paused, watching Jazz intently, weighing him, and a faint frown came to the tactician's lips, hinted at around the edges of his icy optics. "Perhaps I have overstepped. I assumed from your earlier comments, and your presence, initial and continued, here that your return was at least as much a rescue attempt as an extermination mission. I apologize."

What. The. Pit.

"What. The. Pit."

The faint frown became more defined. "Excuse me?"

"What the pit _was_  that? Primus, what are you? An encyclopedia? Why can't you at least _talk_  like a normal mech?"

A file from his ops training opened suddenly.  
Over speaking, defense mechanism. Target: afraid, very nervous.

Oh really? Jazz felt a smirk uncurl on his face. Hunt, his instincts said, for while you didn't need to have a taste for killing to be special ops you couldn't do the job if you didn't feel the call of the hunt. For secrets, for destruction, for an enemy. To chase. To overcome. To dominate.

He repressed the urge, packing those protocols away. This was not a hunt, this was not a mission, this was a fellow Autobot, and one that had no reason to fear him. Fear him? No that wasn't good at all. He packed away the annoyance he had been feeling at the mech's excessive words as well. He was here to... to apologize? Maybe, though he hated the idea of so blatantly confessing he'd messed up.

Jazz rolled around several different tacks to try getting back into things from. The tactician was staring at him with those intent but carefully blank optics. Judging, measuring, field pulled in so tight and close Jazz couldn't even try to get a reading on it.

"I am sorry my method of speech is displeasing to you." The tactician said finally and Jazz winced.

"It's... it's fine... it's fine... it's just... weird." He ruffled his plating, resettling it as if it had been bothering him, trying to fill the awkward silence as the tactician just stared at him with those unreadable pale blue optics. "But... yeah..." Smooth. Ugh. Why couldn't he think of anything to say? He should leave, this was awkward and after the struggle with his ops training he'd lost the thread of the conversation. And yet... well he hadn't really made things right between the two of them had he? He should at least apologize for calling the mech a drone right?

"Regardless," the tactician intoned finally, "I am grateful you judged my life worth saving in spite of your disdain for my function in this army and general disgust toward my... personal traits." There was a brief paused during which the tactician's optics dimmed slightly. "Or rather, lack thereof." He added in a voice that was tired, but rimmed with dark humor.

Jazz couldn't help but wince. Okay, the mech definitely did have a personality, and quite the sharp tongue in a chilly backhanded way. "I'm sorry I called you a drone. That _was_  uncalled for."

"Uncalled for? I sincerely doubt that. You _always_  have reasons for the things you do." And Jazz couldn't tell if he was being dismissive or acidic. "Besides," and there was a faint twitch to the undamaged sensor wing. "It isn't like I haven't heard it before. I know what my place is in this army, and I know what others think of me." Weariness, definite weariness in the mech's voice there. Pit, Jazz hadn't been so desperately attentive to a voice in vorns, scrambling to read the slightest indicators. "I am merely lucky you were able to look past all that and organize a rescue of a fellow Autobot regardless of their function. You have truly risen above yourself Jazz."

And Jazz was starting to feel that warm self satisfied buzz of being admired when the little glitch spoke again.

"You can go now."

"What?" Jazz's mouth hung open. "Are you... _dismissing me_?"

"That's what you were here for isn't it? You did a _good job_  Jazz, and did the right thing in spite of your own personal feelings on the subject matter. There are few things more admirable a mech can do."

"Oh yeah? Then why are you making it sound so much like an insult?"

"I did no such thing." The praxian retorted, sensor wings, even the damaged one, hiking upward slightly in growing anger.

"Did too you lousy number cruncher! I'm not, I'm not some stupid stuck up starlet who needs to be patted on the back every orn for doing a good job! I already _know_  I'm awesome. I don't _need_  some loser like you to say nice crap for me, like throwing an axelwolf your dag blasted scraps." Jazz snarled, rising to his feet, still scarred plating flaring.

"Then why are you still here Jazz? What reason could you possibly have for sticking around and watching my recovery? Why do you bother? You made the right choice leaving me behind. If I as the victim can see that a survivor like you most certainly can. Yet you persisted, hanging around to be here when I finally came back online again anyway. Do you want me to tell you it hurt? Yes, yes it hurt. Is that what you want Jazz? An emotional response you can relate to? It hurt to be left to die. But even when it happened I _knew_  you had made the right choice, had done the right thing. If you'd done the wrong thing there would be a use to this visit, some sort of seeking forgiveness or such emotional nonsense? But no, you made the right choice, you know it, I know it, I'm sure everyone on the whole _blasted_  base knows by now."

"So why _are_  you here Jazz? As you have pointed out I am a loser, I am a drone, I am _nothing_  in your world. Until I showed up with the unfortunate Breakback and Wildride, I may as well never have existed. I'm a tactician not an idiot, you think I don't know what you think of 'my kind'? Of me? And even if I hadn't before, which I assure you, I did, you have most certainly made it _abundantly clear_  that you still feel that way. You don't care about me, you never have. How many people did you have to ask before you could even find out what my name was?"

"I didn't have to ask _anyone_ , I knew already knew your name."

"Oh and why is that? Because you _cared at all_  about tactical or because when you first arrived you though I might make a good _frag_?" The praxian half growled, voice sharp and acidic.

Jazz felt a flush of humiliation, how the pit did this tiny little nobody see through him so blasted well? For the briefest moment there was a set of anger to his jaw, but then it turned into a smirk. "Oh? and who says I ever stopped thinking that?" He asked in a low, husky tone, seizing control of the conversation once again. Best way to put someone off balance? Go and be proud of a point they tried to shame you on.

He was just beginning the slow, measured, up and down look that followed such a bold statement, old memory files coming up from when he _had_  been considering the little winged mech after first arriving, when he realized something was wrong. He barely had time for his expression to shift to a frown when the praxian began scrambling and thrashing, field flared with absolute terror, trying to _get away from him_.

Pit. Wasn't there anything _normal_  about this mech? "Pit. Calm down! I'm not gonna hurt you." A thought occurred to him, in conjunction to what they had been discussing. Oh slag. "Pit! You think I'm going to try something with you hurt like this? You think that's why I hung around? Get some cheap overload offa you acause I saved your life or some slag?" At least the tactician had gone still, though still stared at him with horrified optics, normally flat field awash with terror as he shook, he actually _shook_. Jazz made a disgusted sound. "That what you think of me? I suppose I'm not the _only one_  guilty of cruel thoughts then am I?" He growled out, upset but garnering a taste of victory from the comment. Typical hypocritical number runner. Tacticians _were_  nothing but slag sucking glitches, toying with the lives of _real warriors_  without a thought, no matter what they might pretend otherwise. Vindication. That had to be one of Jazz's favorite words right now.

The tactician trembled, trying to get his vents and field under control, unable to make optic contact. "To be fair, I still don't know why you are here and you _were_  giving me... a-a look." And he sounded _so embarrassed_  just saying the words. Pit, you'd think he'd never been teased before. Jazz frowned. Then again, with a personality like that... What? Was the mech... untouched? Jazz looked at the tactician with a new interest (though he was careful to keep it polite and mostly neutral to keep the flighty thing from flipping out again) as the medic slammed into the room.

"What the frag is going on in here?" The medic demanded, summoned by the still beeping monitors. Right on cue. The mech even directed a scathing glare at Jazz as he paused, looming in the doorway, before scuttling over to his patient, checking on the mech. "I thought I told you not to upset him." The medic snarled, glaring pure hate at the ops agent rather than watching what he was doing as he re-positioned the black and white praxian on the berth, checking the straps that immobilized most of the mech's frame.

"Technically you said not to wear him out." Jazz returned with a self congratulatory smirk.

The medic sputtered, vocalizer failing with the sheer rage coming off of him. "I'll... I'll... I'M GOING TO WELD YOUR PIT-CURSED FACEPLATES TO YOUR AFT!" He finally bellowed. "THIS POOR IDIOT MANGLES HIS LEGS BEYOND THE NORMAL LIMITS OF REPAIR AND YOU" he cut off abruptly, scowling and looking down at the tactician who had been trying to get his attention. "What?"

"I said... it was a misunderstanding. I... I must still be keyed up from the attack." The tactician said, voice weak and very quiet. And Jazz couldn't help but notice how that forced the medic to pay close attention, shifting his focus away from Jazz, and to quiet his own snarling systems, flared plating settling, so he could hear the soft voice. On one hand, maybe the stupid number runner _was_  feeling that awful, on the other hand, he had been speaking at a much closer to normal volume immediately before the medic had come in and, well, the mech _was_  supposed to be smart, and it was a daaaaang canny move. Jazz felt a faint shiver travel down his spinal struts, armor fluffing slightly. This little tactician was _full_  of surprises.

He stayed quiet, watching as the injured tactician handled the medic. As far as Jazz could tell, he never said a thing that was a lie, yet the way he presented things, the small subtle details, the faint traces of emotion allowed into his usual monotone (that he had returned to when the medic had come in), all carefully measured to get the end result. The medic was putty in his hands, the tactician played him so well, all without seeming to break much from his usual bland almost non-personality. Interesting. On one hand, the tactician was acting more like what Jazz was used to, the sparkless apparent drone, but at the same time, he let bits and pieces through, you could see a personality there. Just like earlier when he had cracked a joke, _an actual joke_ , to the medic, just a hint of humor to his usual dull monotone. Was this how the mech acted around friends? And yet, there seemed to be something there, something more (or was it just that now Jazz was paying attention and noticing subtle details he'd never cared enough to pick up on before?).

This Prowl seemed to get along pretty well with the medic, were the two, perhaps, a couple? Two non-combatants, and there were precious few the grouchy medic ever seemed to tolerate much less like. And yet the mech seemed to actually like the little tactician. True there was the whole not ordering parts thing but at the same time the CMO had _personally_  seen to the tactician's repairs, spending the better part of two whole orns carefully welding and soldering, piecing the shattered remains of the tactician's legs back together, repairing and setting each piece with delicate precision. And he'd been so upset about Jazz making the little number runner freak out just now, and it seemed the mech had even done some damage to his mending hydraulics as he'd thrashed against the straps that kept him in place. And yet still the response was so... loud. Overprotective much? A faint amused smile came to his lips. He loved to be up on all the best gossip and it seemed he had just stumbled upon something. The littlest tactician and the hulking head medic. Interesting pair.

But then _again_ , the medic had asked if _Jazz_  was Prowl's lover. Hm... Jazz's smile faded as he considered this new point, watching the two interact, as the mild soft spoken tactician convinced, as if by magic, the still slightly bristling medic to let Jazz stay a while longer. Maybe the lover question had been a sly way of asking his little praxian if he needed to worry about Jazz as a rival? The thought made Jazz smirk a bit, both at the thought that Jazz (who was indeed quite a fine hunk of mech if he did say so himself) was a threat and that the grouchy medic was the jealous type. It would fit with how much the medics had all fought against letting Jazz stay and lurk, keeping silent vigil over the tactician. All the medics knowing about the secret relationship, watching as their head got angrier and angrier, more and more jealous about an outsider staying so stubbornly by his lover's berthside. That was a fun scenario to contemplate, even if it wasn't real (which was as yet undetermined, he'd be a terrible spy if he accepted or dismissed such an intriguing idea on so little information), especially considering all the connotations inherent in the tactician working the medic to make him let Jazz stay.

Jazz watched silently, slouched casually in the chair, trying not to smirk too much at the leaving medic and ruin all the tactician's hard work to let him stay. It was sort of odd though. Jazz took the measure of every mech he met, it was part of being an ops agent. Prowl was, should have been, a nobody. He was smart, a tactician, but not an important one. Aaaaaaand that was about it. Quite a looker, especially if you were into cops, that stark contrast of the black and white, the bright crimson chevron, the exotic sensor wings, and Primus those legs (those same legs that were now nothing but a twisted ruined mess stripped even of plating). But the mech was so emotionless, toneless voice and flat inexpressive field, total mood killer. Before this whole bruhaha Jazz had figured the tactician wasn't _actually able_  to feel. Everything (and while he hadn't ever been interested enough to dig, he still did listen to ALL the gossip, special ops right?) had pointed toward the mech having some sort of severe personality glitch. But here, in this private room of the medbay, he'd showed plenty of emotion, still restrained perhaps, though maybe understated was a better word for it, but undeniably there.

Still, Jazz hated it when people turned out to be so... so different from how he'd measured them to be. He was Special Ops, an undercover agent, a spy. If he wasn't measuring people properly that meant he was _slipping_ , and if he was slipping he couldn't play the game, couldn't stay ahead, and his next slip might get him killed, or _worse_  other Autobots killed. It was _dangerous_  not to be able to measure people properly. His training was edging at him harder and harder the more surprises he found out about the little tactician. It was... sort of exciting really. The questions. The feel of danger. It felt almost like a mission.

And he still didn't know _why_  the little praxian had risked so much to save him, taking the frontliners to bail him out when he got stuck too far from Autobot territory, using his own small frame to conceal Jazz's from the Torquetantula's deadly gaze, standing there field swamped with terror but still defiant. Though now there was so much more than just that to this now. Jazz had found a well of intrigue and a hidden web of potential gossip surrounding this supposed nobody of a tactician. He would find out why the tactician had gone to such lengths to preserve him, and what was going on with him and their head medic. Hm... maybe there was more going on among the non-combatants on base that he and the other warriors and agents had been overlooking. It was exciting enough to wash away the guilt he felt for ditching the praxian before.

"Well then." Jazz drawled slowly leaning back in his chair, amused smile on his lips as his fingers again ticked out a staccato beat on his crossed arms. "You told the medic that we still had things to discuss?" He rolled the words across his glossa slowly, teasingly, relishing how nervous it seemed to make the little tactician.

Prowl fluffed his armor slightly and winced, still badly injured enough that even the small motion hurt. "I mean... if you don't mind, there are a couple things, but at least one I really would like to dis-discuss before you leave. Sort of... set the record straight." Again the mech was avoiding optic contact. He'd look up at Jazz, icy blue optics meeting those of the ops agent, only to pull away again nervously. The longer Jazz was there the more flustered the tactician seemed to get. Interesting. Though he might just be still off balance from Jazz's earlier comments about fragging (especially if he _was_  untouched as Jazz suspected). Clearly it _was_  on the mech's mind because his next words were. "Jazz... about earlier... I had never before considered that you would do such a thing."

Jazz decided to make him suffer. "Oh? What sort of thing?" He asked in a neutral tone. The tactician wasn't the only one who could do unreadable.

But instead of being horribly flustered as Jazz had hoped the tactician simply offlined his optics for a brief moment then brought them back online, giving Jazz an intent, but almost equally unreadable expression. Almost as if he'd started up some program or protocol to help control his emotions (Jazz filed that away in the growing folder labeled 'That stupid tactician Prowl'). "You are not the sort of mech to take advantage of others. The weaknesses of enemies in the pursuit of their destruction? Yes. But... You are not the sort of mech who would take advantage of this situation, or any other. You are a true Autobot at spark Jazz."

And how did you stay mad at someone who said things like that? (Because Jazz _had_  kept track of and stored the anger about Prowl's implication that he was the sort of mech that _would_  take advantage of this situation.) He felt a gentle warmth starting to suffuse his field until he remembered how masterfully the mech had handled the ornery medic just a while earlier. Behind his visor he narrowed his optics, judging, evaluating. After all, still no emotion in the mech's voice. There was a faint twitch of the tactician's lips, as if he was repressing a smile, and his tightly wound field uncoiled, spreading out until it brushed lightly against Jazz's. The emotion there was quiet, slightly embarrassed, but honest admiration. "Hmm..." And a faint smile formed on the praxian's lips. He actually looked kinda nice like that, in a subdued sort of way.

"You are a bit of the suspicious sort aren't you." The tactician said in a faintly teasing tone, the smile becoming a little more bold, but still, very small. It was interesting, somehow the typical void of expression made even the tiniest changes when they _were there_  seem so much louder. "But then, you don't know me." And then the warmth was gone, field pulling back again and going flat. "And I am a tactician. You have every reason to dislike and distrust me." He said as if he didn't quite accept such stereotyping as valid reason, but was perfectly resigned to everyone else applying them with reckless abandon.

Even Jazz.

And while Jazz _did_  want to be indignant about that, he really had done so, lumping this brave little praxian, brave (or stupid) enough to stare down a Torquetantula without breaking and running (and _skilled_  enough to sneak over to where Jazz had been lying without attracting notice, and he _knew_  what a trick _that_  was), with the other wimpy cowardly number runners.

But this sweet moment, those glowing words he'd given Jazz did bring up another question. "So..." His voice had returned to neutral, optics narrowing, so maybe just a hint of danger in his voice. "If you really believe all those things about me, then why did you react so strongly? I may have felt your honesty now," and he knew that some of the most skilled _could_  fake that tang to a field "I felt just as strong your terror then." He pointed out, the accusation clear. _If you don't think I'm that sort of mech, then why did you think I'd do such a thing? And you didn't just think it, you believed it, completely and utterly._

The tactician blinked, as if re-calibrating something in his processor then explained in his typical, professional monotone. "Most of my function revolves around my tactical computer extrapolating probable scenarios out of the available data and formulating efficient responses to said scenario." The tactician licked his lips, a very unusual habit among Cybertronians, a tiny thing, just the barest flicker of the glossa. "It is... very susceptible to the power of suggestion." He added in an almost whisper, as if admitting some critical weakness.

And perhaps it was, if it could be influenced so easily as Jazz had done before. Jazz was silent, face impassive, thinking, judging, calculating. Again the praxian wasn't even looking at him. The slightly smaller mech was less stiff than earlier but that was caused by exhaustion, he was still very nervous. But exhausted. He'd been through so much in such a short time. Far more than could ever have been expected of a tactician and he had performed admirably.

Better than Jazz even.

The special ops let out a long sigh and got up slowly, stretching a bit. The tactician's dimmed optics (they had been starting to flicker out) lit back up and went to the saboteur, seeming to brighten a bit further as he watched the other stretch, then settling on normal, refocusing on Jazz's visor. "You heading out then?" The tactician asked tiredly.

"Mm." Jazz made a noncommittal sound, trying to decide if he could pick up regret in the others voice of frame language. He was tired too really. He'd been so worried about the silly little number runner he hadn't been recharging well (and the constant nightmares hadn't helped either), and he _was_  still recovering from the fight with the Torquetantula. His repaired shocks still ached from the frantic race across the uneven ground and just because dents had been pounded out of your armor didn't make them stop hurting fully, that took time, and his auto-repair systems hadn't quite finished with the tears from the barbed web either. The last battle had been bad and those with such minor injuries had had to wait for quite some time before the medics had been able to get to them.

But things would have been much worse if he hadn't set off that explosive behind enemy lines, Jazz thought with a smirk. But the smirk faded into a smile as his attention was inevitably drawn to the damaged tactician in front of him. True even after all the repairs the praxian was still a mess, but when Jazz's sabotage mission had abruptly turned into a suicide mission, this small overlooked little mech had... had sacrificed _everything_  to make sure he made it back alive.

"Jazz? Jazz, what are you doing?" The little praxian sounded alarmed, and tried squirming away from the ops agent despite the restraints.

"Hush, just, lie still. Ah'm not gonna hurt you." Jazz soothed, carefully slipping into the berth on the praxian's less injured side and sidling over to next to him. The tactician let out a nervous half grumble and moved slightly but didn't protest, though he did turn his helm away so he wasn't looking at the saboteur. Jazz fiddled with a couple clasps, loosening a couple of the straps that held the praxian in place just enough to slip an arm and a leg under the other. The praxian went stiff, frame vibrating slightly, field tight with stress but he didn't object which, as far as Jazz was concerned, was as good as outright permission. Carefully Jazz wrapped his arms around the injured tactician's chassis, the upper one slung low to avoid the patch over his Torquetantula bite, shifting until he wasn't putting pressure on any of the many freshly welded cracks.

Legs were harder, what with the plating missing on the praxians own legs, the healing components bare. But Jazz was careful, gently slipping one leg under in a smooth movement, careful to avoid letting anything catch or jerk, then the other leg over the top. He shifted slightly until they were in a half curled position both comfortable for him and not overly hard on any of the reconstructed components. It felt nice snuggling up to the tactician and Jazz turned his helm to one side and rested it on the praxian's shoulder away from the spiderbot bite. The sound of the other's system filled his audials and, below that, the steady thrum of the tactician's spark.

Jazz felt himself relax a little further. With that sound there, the nightmares would be held at bay. It worked other times, all he had to do was recharge with the sound of another's spark in his audials a time or two and any nightmares he had of them dying horribly would be cured as his spark and deepest code recovered from the shock and accepted that whoever it was, really had survived. (Oh the things you learned as a special ops agent.)

The praxian was still stiff though, vibrating slightly. "It isn't hurting is it?" Jazz asked quietly, voice sounding less certain than he would have liked.

"No..." The tactician admitted hesitantly, tense, nervous, but not upset. There was a faint flush of embarrassment in his carefully controlled field that Jazz was quite literally inside of wrapped around him like this. And was that a faint tickle of contentment too? Enjoyment maybe?

Jazz let out a contented sigh, letting go of control of his own field fully, feeling a faint smugness at the increase of embarrassment in the other as Jazz's contentment washed over the trapped praxian. He felt a faint twitch of the uninjured sensor wing he was partially lying on, then another. "Good. I tried to be careful, but it's probably mostly the pain blockers keepin' it from hurting." Mm... warm... comfortable... let himself relax fully, offlining his visor and just listening to the other mech with a wry mischievous smile on his lips.

He cycled his systems down but didn't drop into recharge just yet, just made it appear so. He was special ops, he never missed an opportunity to gather a little more information. The tactician lay very still, field slowly relaxing, thawing like ice. Perhaps just because of the influence of Jazz's field, it was slowly suffused with contentment. And then, after a while longer, the praxian let out a tired sigh, his own systems cycling down toward recharge, and let his helm tilt over to rest against Jazz's. Score. Jazz couldn't help a faint smirk. The mech was enjoying this, no matter how much he pretended he was above it all. And why wouldn't he? This was the Jazzman snuggling him.

But also... maybe it would make up... even just a little, for Jazz having ditched him before. It was proven that those recovering from traumas recovered faster if allowed to recharge near a friendly spark. If things had been different, the tactician wouldn't be here, broken and mangled, sore helm to pedes and crippled. This... this was on Jazz. And even if the mech didn't blame him, a debt _was_  owed. And if he could repay it a little like this? Snuggled up to this nice warm frame, steady sparkbeat pulsing in his audials soothing away the nightmares that had haunted him since he'd abandoned the praxian to his doom, all the better.

Besides, if Prowl and the CMO _were_  a thing, finding Jazz wound around the tactician like this would make the medic _soooooooooo_  mad. It would be awesome.


	5. When Dreams Come True

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jazz can't resist the opportunity to be a little snot.
> 
> And then Prowl _has to be grateful for it_
> 
> (because it indirectly gives him some much needed time to start trying to fix his altered coding)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter is short. Sorry. Next week's will be better.

Prowl came online slowly, processor and frame hesitant, instinctively fearing a repeat of the near death that had occurred last time. But no horrible memory purges came up, no relived pain, no seizing or spark failure. Just the huge horrible overwhelming ache of being bashed and banged up and his legs... oh Primus his legs. Prowl's frame shuddered slightly with the pain as his sensor net, partially numbed by fading pain blockers, came online and assaulted him with hundreds of error messages and damage warnings and system failure notifications.

Ugh. He could already feel a processor ache coming on and he had only barely regained consciousness. And yet the warmth against him helped ease some of the pain, calming, soothing. Thermal tarp. But why was it only on one side? And why was his frame contorted like this, not much but lifted up in

Jazz! Prowl's optics onlined with a sharp crackle as he forced them to initialize too quickly. That was his master's frame wrapped around him, legs entwined with his, smooth plating pressing against the raw healing components in a way that just barely hurt and felt far far too sensitive.

Master: Protect, please

No, Jazz. Not master, Jazz.

Jazz: Mate, master: obey

Prowl struggled with the code for a while then subsided. He'd be lying if he claimed not to have fantasized about simply being _touched_  by the gorgeous elegant charismatic special ops, but this? This was far beyond what he'd even imagined. And it felt so... so nice... the warm frame the comforting peaceful field pulsing in a calm slightly arrhythmic beat against his.

He was tired and weak and badly damaged. It was no surprise his frame responded so well to a friendly presence curling around and through him, smothering him in that contented field as if the special ops were purposely using it as weapon to subdue the tactician. And wasn't that a terrifying thought? Most of all because it was working so pit cursed well. A faint whimper escaped his vocalizer at the thought and Prowl shivered.

And there it was, his frame betraying him, having these strange little reactions spurred by the alterations the femme code had made to him. It was so hard having Jazz close like this. Prowl was being torn in two, loving the closeness and yet feeling as every positive feeling and thought, and even just the sight of Jazz was strengthening, reinforcing the changes to his code. Every little bit of attraction, physical or otherwise, a weapon the femme code was using against him, another thread to bind him helpless.

And watching the mech stretch when he got up from that chair? Oh man. Jazz was so graceful, he moved as if made of liquid instead of stiff metal struts and plates Prowl knew he in fact was. And it didn't help that the mech _knew_  he was gorgeous. It was obvious his carrier had the traditional 'organic femme' form. His hybridized kindled frame had inherited a slightly slimer curved figure, not curvy so much as smoothed, less blocky than was usual for a cybertronian and not so overwide, while still having decent bulk and strength and height. And the smug jerk was flaunted it so shamelessly.

But it wasn't his looks that had drawn Prowl's attention originally, it was his character, his fierce loyalty, his charisma, his refusal to _ever_  leave a mech behind, his willingness to risk life and limb, recklessly, almost suicidal in his pursuit of doing what might help most, laughing at danger, dancing at the edge of The Well without ever falling over into it. Jazz was an anomaly. With the missions and unnecessary risks he took he should have been destroyed long long ago. Yet still he remained, strong and fierce and loyal and wild, untamed and toying with the all the fiddly bits of the world, beating all the odds and laughing at danger.

But there was more to him than just that. The saboteur had a 'public face' just as much as the tactician, though no one seemed to notice. But Prowl watched, quiet and silent, utterly ignored and disdained and thus able to end up places where none else could. He saw beneath the mask, the hurt and the suffering, the hidden emotions that Jazz hid. The sad Jazz, the angry Jazz, the hurt Jazz. The Jazzes he hid so well. And then Prowl had started with the gifts, the tiny tokens and baubles, carefully thought out and secretly delivered, that never failed to restore the spring in the saboteur's almost dancing steps.

And now there was this.. this alien _code_  inside him, twisting things, strong, demanding, constantly drawing attention to the _physical_  aspects of the mech that Prowl rarely let himself dwell on (what point? He knew he would never have Jazz, Jazz could never be owned and would never be interested in a coldsparked drone-like tactician). It was _ruining_  his beautiful unrequited romance, cluttering it with things of the physical, instead of the purer (less dangerous) emotional and philosophical reasons to like the mech. Now... the code kept drawing his attention to things, flagging random parts and details as very important, while it twisted his mind. He didn't _want_  to stare at those pale blue panels on Jazz's hip juncture, or that luscious blue and white bumper or

Pit. He hated femme code. He just wanted his sweet innocent little imaginary one-sided romance back. Not this growing seething cauldron of waking awareness and desires that threatened even now to blow up in his face. He was in so much danger like this, and every second Jazz hung around it got worse, the need to please grew stronger and stronger. He could swear the femme code was building up toward a point where it would _actively seek_  commands inside of every word Jazz spoke to force Prowl to obey. It was terrifying. And his attempts to get rid of Jazz before (which his altered code had brutally punished him for) had been unsuccessful and so... so hard to do emotionally too because it was hard to _remember why_  he wanted to get rid of the mech, keep him away because he _liked_  Jazz. A lot. He wouldn't call it love, but that was because that implied some sort of reciprocation. But since it had always been about Jazz the mech, not his attractive frame, it had been a love right? Just a one sided one?

But now...

He'd dreamed of talking with Jazz, of the mech gently reaching out to touch his shoulder, the light brush of those dark fingers against his white plating. The little things, holding hands, an embrace had been almost more than he could handle, even in his imagination.

And now he had so much more than that. He had Jazz literally wrapped around him, cuddling him like a pillow or (and he could scarcely even think the idea) a lover, smothering Prowl in his powerful smug contented field, and it was the most horrible terrifying thing that could happen because of the code in his processor, choking and entangling him, when it should have been the most perfect beautiful moment of his function, a dream come true.

But... the field didn't feel smug while the mech was in recharge. Contentment was the primary theme but praxian sensor wings were not just for show. They picked up on things that no one else could and even numbed Prowl could still taste the deep sorrow and loneliness and guilt that rested in the ops agent's field. Or perhaps it was the mech's spark. Prowl didn't exactly know the literature on this ability, praxians took it for granted and everyone else simply dismissed praxians as 'perceptive glitches'. But their frame type was _designed_  for data collection and analysis, the sensor wings powerful instruments for scanning and reading their surroundings, gathering information and data others could not. With the mech resting on his one sensor wing that had no major damage, he could feel every hum and vibration, every pulse and signal, through the saboteur's strong lanky frame. But these things he felt he had already seen. No surprises there. But it still felt so nice, so good, so _right_  to have Jazz's arms and legs wound around him as he lay there strapped down to the medical berth.

Except, how much of that was the femme code? Had he inherited a programming to want to be bound too? A masochistic streak as well considering the powerful effect the faint sliding of Jazz's legs as the mech began to rise from recharge against the exposed healing components of Prowl's own legs was having on him?

Prowl let out a faint whimper, in spite of his best efforts to remain still and silent (obeying the command Jazz had given when clambering into the berth with him as Prowl's altered coding demanded). Somehow he had to get this code under control. He was good at code things, he'd had become somewhat of an expert to deal with his tactical computer. It would be hard, very hard, but somehow, he would unravel this and get free. He just needed time _away from Jazz_  without the saboteur constantly stimulating the altered coding and making him forget why it was a bad thing to be bound to him.

This had to be one of the most terrifying things that had ever happened to Prowl and it was all he could do to make sure his spark didn't start seizing again and bother the medics.

How could you _want_  something that was so fundamentally terrifying? Was it him that wanted? it or just this code that was fighting to turn him into someone else, something else, a willing compliant slave to Jazz's will and mercurial moods? Thank Primus that Jazz was a good mech and not a cruel or vindictive one. If he'd been bound to SharpEdge he'd have been ruined.

And what if Jazz found out? Or rather, what would happen _when_  Jazz found out. The mech was smart and observant, he'd be a terrible spy if he wasn't. He could only hope, pray to Primus that Jazz would quickly grow bored of him and forget Prowl even existed again. And at the same time the thought made his spark twist. This was his one, and no doubt _only_ , chance to have something with Jazz. And the femme code was _ruining it_.

This was so _so_  messed up.

Prowl stared into Jazz's face, so comfortably close resting on his shoulder, a smirk on those perfect lips, the sort that just made you

No. Look at things rationally, don't get distracted. Keep your vents even, keep your field flat, keep your thoughts centered. Calm, cool, collected.

Jazz's smirk seemed to richen, as if _he knew_  Prowl's internal strugglings, the smug filtering back into his oppressive field, tilting his helm slightly so his concealed optics would better meet Prowl's, systems humming softly, seeming almost to purr in sleepy contented laziness. "So Prowl" He said in a low murmur that hung somewhere between seductive and mischievous and made Prowl's vents, over sensitized by the changes the femme code had made to him, catch and stutter. "You and the CMO..." Prowl frowned slightly, trying to figure out what Jazz meant, trying to properly parse the words despite that voice that just made him want to "Which one of you is the femme in your relationship?"

Prowl broke Jazz's faceplate.

And his visor.

Thoroughly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jazz: _daaamn thats hot_
> 
> for some reason my brain came up with this, thinking of it being a cultural thing to refer to what we would call the 'submissive' of a relationship the 'femme'. Way worse than normal than the connotations of the human version, since femmes were originally perfectly programmed pleasure slaves... o.o
> 
> Dang it Jazz. That is even WORSE than calling someone a drone. x.x  
> How do you have any friends?  
> Though I suppose warrior couples would just laugh it off... maybe...


	6. Tactical Drama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remember how Prowl mentioned he was _so_ glad he wasn't stuck with his slave code latched onto someone like 'SharpEdge'? Well now we get to meet SharpEdge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sick and tired.  
> I MADE THIS FOR YOU!

Being full kindled came with certain advantages. Such as having far more nanites than usual. Usually your hybridized frame meant no standardized parts, but having double or triple the number of repair nanites meant you could recover more on your own, repair welds re-integrated a bit faster, and sometimes your repair systems could even internally refit parts that were (only) slightly off from the correct specifications. It didn't change that Prowl's leg components were a ragged ugly awful mess. It didn't change that the healing hurt, and quite a lot too. But it did mean there was far more Prowl's auto-repair systems could do on their own than those of any forged mech.

Prowl squirmed within the straps that held him down to the berth, considering undoing the ones across his chassis so he could bend over to examine the progress of the auto-repairs. The welds that snaked across his chestplates were still ugly and discolored, hardly any progress made toward re-integration or even minor repair from a mix of after effects of the poison so close to its initial injection site, and the fact that plating repair was so low a priority when compared to that of internal components. But if he undid the straps BrightLine, or whichever medic came in to check on him first, would scold. At least the medical berth had a button to let Prowl adjust the back so he could be at least partially propped up instead of lying flat _all_  the time.

Lying flat. Just thinking about it brought thoughts of Jazz to the forefront of his mind, the feel of that strong streamlined body

Nope. Nope nope nope. Error. Prowl managed to crash the line of thought before it got far. He was still working on his internal coding problems, shoring up his defenses so no new changes could be made, trying to unsnarl the enforced obedience from his code. It was a funny thing. He could tell from reading through the modified code that the femme code could overwrite his own will and seize full control over frame movements. Actually he had found a part of that out when he'd attacked Jazz just a couple orns ago. It had physically hurt to punch the ever-living daylights out of that snarky jerkface, the femme code activating strange and horrible punishment protocols he hadn't fully understood at the time, too enraged to care, until after the third blow when the code had resorted to more drastic measures and his entire frame had locked up.

But by then Jazz had been pulling away, laughing as fresh energon poured down from a badly cracked faceplate, visor and one optic shattered. It had been easy enough to act as if he'd stopped punching the ops agent because of the other retreating from range, rather than internal restraints and pain. All those endless vorns of hiding emotion and muting his field had allowed Prowl to hide everything but his very real rage from both Jazz and the very annoyed medic that had burst in in response to the beeping monitors.

The medic, Patches, had been shocked to see the wounded saboteur and the fresh energon on Prowl's hand, but had known Prowl well enough to be immediately on his side. When he found out exactly _why_  Prowl had decided to beat up the mech who had been peacefully recharging with him less than a joor before, the medic had been livid. There were some things you didn't say. Or imply. Ever.

And Jazz, the gorgeous little glitch, had simply kept up laughing, spitting up some energon as he bled and coughed, as if it were the funniest thing in the entire history of Cyberton. Prowl had heard the normally mild mannered medic chewing the saboteur out as he'd dragged Jazz out of the private recovery room by one of his audial horns. And then he'd been left in blessed peace to deal with the horrible agony being inflicted on him by the enraged femme code, and the awful coding errors it was generating, damaging his run code and causing him several very painful crashes.

Now... it had been several orns and his helm still ached nonstop in spite of the pain-blockers he was on. He had at least undone the minor coding snarls the angry femme code had made in his natural run-code, but he still watched it nervously, worried and suspicious that somehow something else would pop up and try to hurt or crash him. The modifications the femme code had made to him made it harder to analyze and influence his own code, it probably would have made anyone less skilled completely helpless in that regard. But during the orns since Jazz had left he had been making progress to stabilize and fortify himself against the influence of the femme code, against further modifications it might try to make to him. Even now he could feel its insidious hooks inside his own _personality matrix_  pulling, tugging at him, tangling his emotions and changing him, binding him to Jazz, tugging him toward the mech.

He missed Jazz.

As much as it was hard, as much as it hurt to work on, to undo the damage to his code, he missed the mech. He missed Jazz. He missed seeing his blue and white and chromed frame, he missed his gentle touch, he missed his mischievous smile. He missed catching glimpses of the mech in the corridors or mess halls, as he had before this whole mess started. Things had been so much simpler before, the silly one sided romance, watching his crush from afar. And now he couldn't tell what parts were his own natural feelings, and what was the femme code rewriting his very personality.

Distractions. No. He needed to focus, isolating, quarantining the accursed femme code and its 2,492,592 sub-protocols that threatened to change and control him. At least it wasn't getting worse without Jazz there to stimulate it, or direct it as what settings he wanted for his slave. Prowl could feel it looming over him, every once in a while, a silent threat full of terrible promise. Once he had tried to examine it closely, had seen some of the 'settings'. That hadn't lasted long and he had been so very very glad that it had such mild defaults in the absence of direct instructions from its determined master. He had not dared look at it directly since, any more than was absolutely necessary in his efforts to protect himself from it.

Settled deep inside his own processor, wrangling and repairing code, he did not hear when someone entered his small room. An alert from the sub-processor that acted as a sentry monitor told him that someone had called his name and he shifted his attention back to the external world, rapidly becoming cognizant of all the data coming in through his sensor-net. For a brief moment he had hoped that it might be Jazz, though he had long before calculated that there was only a 13.068% chance the medics would allow the saboteur to visit him again. But as his optics came online a far less pleasant sight greeted him.

SharpEdge.

Not for the first time, even that orn, Prowl was grateful for all the endless practice he had hiding his emotions from others. His neutral expression didn't twitch in even the slightest and his field remained completely calm even as he stared at the only mech he truly hated, the Head of Tactics here on the GasketRun base. It wasn't that SharpEdge was a cruel, unfeeling, mis-clock that did not care about the mechs under their command. It wasn't that the mech had about as much bravery and kindness as a glitched mining drone. It wasn't even that the mech was a slimy, perverted, creep that had fewer redeeming qualities than a blind one legged glitchmouse. All these things were contributing factors, but not even combined were they enough to incite hate in the ex-enforcer.

Prowl hated SharpEdge because the mech was stupid _and yet_  he _still_  set himself up as a brilliant tactician, losing endless lives through the simplest mistakes and blaming _others_  for his own inadequacies. The only good thing about SharpEdge was that the mech was lazy, and since Prowl had arrived the mech had forced the lowly sub-tactician to 'check' all his work, reviewing and writing reports on them, in addition to Prowl's normal work, in order to 'train his mind' for work as part of the Autobot army.

Eighteen vorns later and Prowl was still the lowest of the sub-tacticians, but at least he had managed to save thousands and thousands of lives. He'd been called a glitch and a moron, and the commander of the base had been told repeatedly that he was 'a bit of an idiot' and 'too stupid to promote and too weak to transfer to active combat' and was generally treated like either a glorified secretary or a sadly processor damaged greenhorn with no actual value to the cause. So long as SharpEdge was in charge of tactical Prowl would never be promoted, and could never be transferred to another base (no one wanted him with SharpEdge's 'glowing reviews' on his record). But that was fine with Prowl because he was able to mitigate the damage the disgusting monster would do otherwise with his arrogant stupidity.

Actually there was a way Prowl could get promoted. It was a way that SharpEdge had not so subtly made him aware of after his much more subtle hints had been ignored. Prowl was not interested. Even if he hadn't been fine with being at the bottom of the heap he would have utterly refused to stoop to _that_  method of achieving promotion. After ignoring his commanding officer's less subtle hints it suddenly got around the whole base that Prowl had a serious personality glitch. A petty retaliation for Prowl refusing his advances but when Prowl hadn't made a peep to discourage or deny the accusation the whole base had accepted it as true and SharpEdge had stopped dropping hints and restrained himself to making life as miserable as possible for Prowl.

"Prowl." The Head of Tactics barked, large face contorted by an ugly scowl.

"Yes sir?" Prowl responded in his customary monotone, putting an expression of blank interest on his face as he performed as much of a salute as the straps holding him down would allow.

"You lazy kindled halfbreed knockoff." The large convoy class growled approaching.

"Sir?" Prowl kept his tone that of polite, if faintly confused, interest even as his circuits went cold with disgust and maybe just a _little_  pain at the insults.

SharpEdge slapped him hard enough across the face to make his helm snap to one side. But the blow was more designed to insult, to demean and debase, than to actually harm. Prowl rebooted his optics, re-calibrating his audials against the sudden ringing in them, then turned back toward his superior officer. He knew the right words to say, and maintained the apparent indifference in both expression and field. "I am sorry sir. What is it I have done sir?" He asked, angling his sensor wings downward slightly in deference even as cold anger curled deep in his spark. At least SharpEdge hadn't spat on him this time.

"BrightLine tells me you have been back online for five orns now and yet you still have been sitting in here like a lazy pit-spawned glitch. It was bad enough they had you offline for so long in the first place, but now you are just lazing about when you should be getting on with your responsibilities. Do you have any idea how much work you have missed?" And SharpEdge paused, engine snarling, optics filled with hate.

"No sir." Prowl said meekly, after it became clear his superior officer was waiting for a response.

"Far. Too. Much." The Head of Tactics barked and Prowl could taste the unease, the fear, and the overwhelming hate in the other's field. For all that emotions of others were hard to comprehend, Prowl wasn't ignorant of them. Even if they made no sense he had lived long enough to learn many of the patterns people fell into. SharpEdge knew Prowl was smarter than him, and he hated Prowl for it. And now he was mad and upset and freaked out because he didn't have his trusty lackey to do his work for him.

He hated Prowl, and he hated how much he relied on him to keep his position now that they had some pretty decent tacticians in their division. SharpEdge knew he would be ruined if anyone ever found out what he was doing. And he knew that Prowl had to be intelligent enough to know that, intelligent enough to blackmail him for it. And yet Prowl never ever raised his helm, meekly submitting, going along with all the abuse and the insults and the cruelty. And instead of comforting the mech, it only made SharpEdge hate and fear Prowl more. Hopefully one day the mech would either accept that Prowl had no interest in his job or blackmail, or somehow lose his position or die off or something. He was already making the war seem intolerably long and Prowl's current projections were showing it would last for a very very long time to come.

"You think you are better than me." SharpEdge accused, engine snarling.

Prowl managed not to shutter his optics, or visually show his frustration or exasperation. This again. Instead Prowl widened his optics slightly and angled his sensor wings upward in a mild display of shock (he wasn't very good at emoting, even when it was on purpose). "N-no sir. Of course not sir!"

"You do! I know you do, bloody biomechanoid knockoff." SharpEdge half roared, a grim cruel smirk coming to his lips as Prowl flinched at the slur, glad to have scored a reaction off the usually unflappable sub-tactician. Biomechanoid was one of the worst things you could call someone. Not a real mechanism, not even a machine, just some sort of biologically grown hunk of metal. It was worse even than being called a drone or femme.

Prowl angled his sensor wings downward in submission, dropping his gaze. "Do I treat you any differently than anyone else sir?" He asked quietly, keeping his voice and field in line by force of will alone as his optics glared hate and hurt down at the welds in his own chassis. But he knew he'd won the argument, because he didn't treat SharpEdge different from any other of his superiors. He might hate SharpEdge in a way he had never previously known it was possible to before meeting the mech, but Prowl had never let his personal feelings interfere with work, never let what few feelings he did have show themselves. _Cold-spark. Doesn't feel a thing._  An echo of a voice from his past. But it was better to feel nothing than to allow personal matters to interfere with the performance of one's function and duty.

A large hand clamped around his lower jaw and Prowl felt himself freeze up briefly as SharpEdge dragged it upward, forcing Prowl to look into his cold hate filled optics. Primus, SharpEdge never got this physical, it seemed the mech had been frightened he'd lose his personal slave and be revealed for the incompetent he really was without Prowl to do all his work for him. If Prowl didn't know better he'd think the mech had _feelings_  for him, he was so upset. But then, SharpEdge _did_  have feelings for him, very deep feelings. They were just all hate based. "You are a disgusting little glitch, you know that right?" The larger mech growled, looming over Prowl and bent so they were face to face as he increased his grip, fingers slowly warping the metal of Prowl's face.

Prowl swallowed, a true flicker of fear going through him briefly, allowing it to be felt in his field, to make his sensor wings curl downward and back in terrified submission that was only mostly exaggerated. Was SharpEdge becoming more unstable? Or had he just been having a very bad Quartex without Prowl there to cover up his mistakes? Either way the probability of the larger mech doing him real harm was far too high and Prowl hated it when the larger frames loomed over him like that. True submission, true fear, was his only hope to appease the angry mech and avoid confrontation. "Yes sir. I know." He said, and almost added 'I know I am glitched and useless' but his tactical computer reported a 73.293% probability SharpEdge would interpret that as mocking him so he bit his glossa and prayed that the larger mech wouldn't do him further harm.

Apparently his display, and the fear was enough to placate the Head of Tactics. He gave Prowl's chin a squeeze and then let go, letting Prowl drop back slightly into the berth. "And don't you forget it useless." He growled, though his engine had soothed to a quiet rumble, field turned smug and exultant. He pulled a box from his subspace and dropped it practically on top of the injured mech. "Your work glitch. I'll be sending a runner to pick it up at the end of shift. You'd better have it all done by then or _there will be consequences_."

Prowl didn't hide the shaking of his hands as he opened the box and removed the first datapad. Let SharpEdge see his fear, anything to get the volatile mech stable and away. "Y-yes sir." He said, creating just the right amount of stutter to be convincing, and focused on the datapad as if properly terrorized. And the smug arrogant jerk strutted from the room as if he'd won the whole pit blasted war by himself, rather than just terrorized one of his subordinates who happened to be little more than half his size.

Prowl glanced up at the door as it swung closed behind the Head of Tactics. He hated SharpEdge. If only he wasn't such a coward there would be hope of him dying in combat, but he was the only one of the tactical division who never worked to direct on the battlefield itself. Prowl had never met anyone he had truly hated before, not that he could remember anyway. Interesting that his two first visitors after such major injury and accompanying surgeries should be the two mechs who brought out the strongest emotional reactions in him.

Then again it wasn't like there was anyone else on base who noticed or cared that he was injured, and Jazz only because he had been blaming himself for Prowl's injuries. Prowl didn't have friends, except perhaps a couple of the medics, but even that was more of mutual respect than something as familiar as friendship.

Prowl let out a sigh and looked down at the datapad. Work. And for the first time in a long long time he wasn't happy to have it. His work was satisfying, and important, and it needed to be done. But each breem he spent working on tactical planning or writing superfluous reports for his obnoxious superior officer, was a breem he wasn't working on fixing the slave code issues.

Well at least all the work distracted him from how little he was allowed to move at this stage.

With a sigh Prowl opened the panel in his wrist and linked directly into the first datapad.


	7. Meanwhile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz hanging with other warriors and starting to snoop
> 
> BrightLine being a stubborn Autobot CMO
> 
> Jazz muse is hard to keep track of.  
> Tune in next week for Prowl being released from medbay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Size class Outline with examples:  
> Guardian Robot : Omega Supreme Combiner teams  
> Shuttle : Skyfire  
> 6m+ Commander : Optimus Prime Dinobots Megatron  
> 5m+ Oversized : Twins TrailBreaker Blaster Inferno Shockwave Soundwave  
> 5m Convoy/Warrior : IronHide Ratchet Perceptor Seekers Constructicons  
> 4m+ Standard/Scout : WheelJack Hound Mirage RedAlert Smokescreen Reflector  
> 4m Small : Jazz Prowl BlueStreak Insecticons  
> 3m+ Minibots : subdivided, some minibots are taller than others but no one else bothers with their size classifications. Huffer/Brawn tallest wheelie smallest  
> Cassettes : All about the size of a human

"And then, you won't believe this part, the little glitch socks me. I mean, seriously. He's strapped down with only his arms and helm free, and I'm lyin right next to 'im, and he hauls off and breaks my faceplace right in half, _with the first blow._ " And the entire table erupted in raucous laughter, Jazz whole-sparkedly joining in, though it hurt the still tender welds that spread all across his damaged face. It was going to take two quartexes for it to fully reintegrate, the medic who had welded him back together hadn't been exactly careful, and another two orns before his new visor was finished.

Totally worth it.

"Who woulda thought the little drone had it in him." SwipeSlice chuckled.

"Darn straight. And he got off another two blows before I managed to get outta range. Messed mah face up real good and broke my visor to bits. Had to get engineering to remake it."

"Engineering." Upstart snorted. "You say that like it is an actual division, when really it is just some little noncomb in a glorified closet."

Jazz shrugged good naturedly. "The mech's got his uses. Not like I could get a new one out here otherwise."

"Aww, why you gotta wear one at all sweetspark? Ya got such lovely lil' peepers." RipRide rumbled deep in his chest, the tank-former reaching out one large hand to stroke along the outside of Jazz's helm, cupping it gently as he stared with wonder into Jazz's deep blue optics. Jazz allowed the contact, letting his helm tilt almost imperceptibly into the larger mech's hand. He did love to be admired and RipRide had a crush on him as big as the rustsea itself. If only the mech had the gearshafts to say something.

Again Jazz's mind went to his secret admirer. He had plenty of admirers, he had half the base in the palm of his hand, but there was one mech who always left the most thoughtful, and frustrating, gifts. Frustrating because Jazz had never ever _ever_  been able to pin down who it was. There was never any note or name, just sweets or music or trinkets, and no matter how hard he tried, how he might sweet talk the head of security, and watch camera feeds like a cyberhawk, he could never find out who left them. And now was one of the points where he should have gotten another of those gifts, his secret admirer always gave him something after he'd had a rough time, and the run in with the Torquetantula was the mother of all bad times. He'd come back online the first time after collapsing in medbay (he had kept himself online by sheer force of will until they had made it all the way back to base, sitting in back of the CMO's expanded vehicle mode when he could no longer drive, hovering over the barely stabilized wreck that had been all that was left of the praxian who had twice over saved his life) to a whole pile of gifts from his not-so-secret admirers, but the whole time he'd been in medbay, and in the couple orns since he had left, not a single one from his secret admirer.

So did that mean the mech was dead now? They had lost enough in the last battle. Or perhaps his secret admirer was finally building up the courage to deliver a gift in person, to come clean and confess, admit to it all and court him for real? Jazz stared into RipRide's large blue optics intently for a while, again wondering what intelligence the quiet mech hid within. Did the bluster and embarrassment hide something deep and thoughtful? Did the simple words he tended to use hide an intellect as sharp and canny as Jazz's own. If it did, Jazz desperately hoped the mech would tell him already. He was going crazy not knowing who it was who gave him all those secret silent gifts.

Jazz cracked a grin at the tank. "Aww, but then ya'll'd wear 'em out from staring so hard." He laughed back. "Besides, don'tcha know that makin' something rare makes it more valuable? Only a few've ever seen mah optics, now ya all can count yourselves some of the lucky ones." He said with a huge wink to the table as a whole, carefully sliding his helm out of RipRide's grasp without making it obvious, and with just the right amount of reluctance for even the tank to be able to pick up on.

 _Though, if he really is my secret admirer he'd be clever enough to pick up on it even if I were far more subtle about it._ What a silly thought. Either the mech was his secret admirer or he wasn't, and until he got more information he'd never know for sure. _Unless the mech is dead. Then there is no more information to be had, and the secret died in that last battle. A mech who knew me so well, able to tell when I was upset even when no one else could, who knew what kind of music I liked best even when I hadn't been here long at all, who could always tell what I needed even when I didn't know._  He felt a pang in his spark and the conversation, the lighthearted teasing with the other warriors suddenly lost its charm. He felt cold inside, though his perfectly schooled expression hid it perfectly, only his field retreating slightly from where it had been mingling with the others' an evidence of his loss of the mood. None of the other warriors seemed to have noticed, joking and prodding at each other. _My secret admirer would have noticed._  He thought with a fierce almost angry loyalty, for a moment his field and expression flickering with his dark mood. Quickly he hid it away again, deep inside himself. The Jazzman didn't _get_  upset so easily, he'd lose face if anyone thought otherwise.

"I'm surprised they let the drone stick around at all. He is clearly dangerously glitched and pretty stupid too." One of the mechs was saying.

"Yeah, woulda been better if he just got et by the spiderbot."

That got Jazz's full attention, and an image in his mind flickered of a small figure, wings outspread, hiding him from certain death. "What?" He said, somewhat stupidly.

SwipeSlice looked over at Jazz. "The drone. 'S good of you to go back an rescue him 'n all. Fellow Autobot and whatnot, but ya shoulda let medical look after you and the others take care a it alone. Ya coulda died and didn't you damage your shocks pretty bad just going over there?"

Jazz shrugged. "Eh, not so bad I've had worse." Total lie, but he was not about to admit he was racing his own guilt. He was the hero of the incident, or so he'd told everyone.

"Shouldn'ta bothered, not like he woulda been missed anyway." RipRide said taking a gulp from his cube.

"Yeah, can't believe our Jazz got so bad injured trying to save a stupid _number runner_." Wheelright growled in disgust, face pulled into an ugly expression that made Jazz's spark twist for some reason.

"Jazz, I know you like being the Hero an all but you shouldn't go hurting yourself over idiot non-comb drones." OilSlick said gently, optics on the faint scarring still evident on Jazz's plating from the Torquetantula's web when he'd tried to get Prowl free. The warrior's optics then went up to meet Jazz's again. "You should have just left him to die."

Jazz felt his internals go icy cold. As if he'd swallowed frozen energon and it was freezing him from the inside out. But he couldn't let the others see. "Aww don't be like that. The mech's saved our collective afts plenty enough times on the battlefield with his tactical know how." He said, forcing his voice to be light and cheerful. Suddenly he knew that he could never tell them about the nightmares, of waking over and over on the edge of screaming as he cradled that still broken grey frame in his arms, too late. They wouldn't understand, couldn't understand. They didn't know, hadn't seen what he'd seen, hadn't been saved by a pathetic nobody who turned out to be some glitched up idiot braver than half the army put together. They hadn't seen the little tactician standing guard over the frame of a warrior, facing off a torquetantula with nothing but a puny standard issue assault rifle.

"You like him don't you?"

"Wh-what?" Jazz stammered, optics widening in shock. And he didn't have his visor to disguise it. He made a face. "Oh ewww no. Gag me."

"Oh man Jazz. How many times 'ave I got to tell you, he's got nothin' in there. Don't go mooning after the drone, its a looker but there's only sparkbreak there."

"Yeah, just because he went after you while you were stuck behind enemy lines doesn't mean there is anything _there_."

"If you want a drone at least get one that's programmed right. AmIRight?" RedLine said grinning, the light racer always one for the cheap jokes.

Swearing and protests broke out all through the table and SwipeSlice cuffed the impertinent mech. "Eeesh, watch your glossa, we got sophisticated mechs about ya little twit." And Jazz knew they meant him, and because they all thought he was one of the rare femmes, and thus should be treated with more respect and honor. He watched as the warriors continued, arguing and joking good naturedly, feeling out of place and lost.

He considered excusing himself but he felt sick inside and just wanted to be alone. He didn't want their attention, so he slipped away silently as only the best of special ops can, to find some privacy and try to work out his feelings by driving really far really fast.

 

 

 

"It is none of your concern as to how SharpEdge disciplines his subordinates. Besides, I have been told that is the sort of thing the glitch responds to best."

It was all BrightLine could do not to grind his denta. He hadn't known Commander GasketCap before the war but he liked to think that the Commander had been a sensible steady mech who was chosen to lead here because of his ability to lead other mecha by example and in battle. He just also happened to be insensitive, bigoted, and 'buddies' with SharpEdge. "Sir, with all due respect, it is one thing to tell me to tolerate mecha abusing each other in their own divisions, but quite another to be told to allow it within the confines of my _own medbay._ " He said, growling in spite of his best efforts to remain calm and professional (Primus, how did Prowl manage it?). The medbay was sacrosanct. A refuge for the damaged and dying, a place of peace and healing and safety amid the brutal maelstrom of war. It was _not_  a place to be bawled out and dented by arrogant glitchwad superior officers.

GasketCap fluttered a hand dismissively. "Here, there, it is all the same. The mech is under SharpEdge's jurisdiction, it is only by his insistence we even keep the glitch around. Biomechanoids are all the same. Useless creatures one and all. Barely more than drones. At least part kindleds have proper frames and coding but bionoids? Ugh." He gave a disgusted snort. "Everything's gone downhill since they started with the whole gender upgrades thing."

BrightLine managed not to roll his optics but he could not keep his disgust from his field and instead checked, yet again, that it was properly pulled in away from that of the base Commander. Not that he wholly disagreed with the sentiment, the 'genders' thing had opened a can of scraplets and spread it all across the whole of Cybertron, an endless snarled mess full of complications no one had been prepared for. But it was hardly a Bionoid's (short for Biomechanoid) fault that they weren't properly forged mechanisms. "Bionoid or not the mech's still an Autobot, and so long as he wears the Autobrand he deserves at least to be allowed the rest he needs to properly self repair." He said, keeping his voice steady though clipped.

The commander frowned. "How badly damaged _is_  the mech?"

"His legs are ruined and we lack the parts to properly repair him."

GasketCap grimaced. "Well not like we can afford to waste them on a noncomb like him. It's not like a tactician needs his legs anyway." He glowered into space for a moment or two then focused on BrightLine again. "Fine. Your request is granted, no more work will be required of him until he has been properly released. It's not like an empty-helmed moron like him makes any _real_  contribution anyway. Now go bother someone else." The commander said, making a shooing motion that BrightLine found very offensive. But he _had_ won, and now his patient would be allowed to rest in peace and not get further damaged by his downright disgusting superior officer.

"Thank you sir." BrightLine said, nodding his head in respect then leaving the Commander's office. Once outside he released his field, letting it spread back out to its natural size and shape, feeling a bit of the tension leave his frame as he did. It was not easy controlling a field as big as his, but he was an Oversized frame, and the bigger the frame the bigger the field as they said. The CMO let out an irritated grumble as he headed back toward medbay. Yes, he had won, but decaorn by decaorn, vorn by vorn he found that the prejudices of GasketCap and all the other warriors, and even the sparse handful of special ops agents, got under his plating more and more.

"Kindled sparks are an abomination before Primus, hollow echos of true sparks, a form without substance, a lie before our Maker, to be snuffed out by the hands of His true Children in all instances." An audio file in BrightLine's mind replayed, words he had once believed with all his spark, but now... things had changed. It seemed so strange and ironic even that it was the kindleds he knew, like Prowl and Patches, who were the strongest and softest sparked, while the Vector Sigma sparks like SharpEdge and GasketCap, and even himself, were cold and hard, hardly fitting reflections of the mighty and benevolent Primus.

And he _wanted_  to believe that Primus was benevolent, that He looked down on His creations and cared about their suffering, the war that was slowly killing them. Some asked what kind of god would allow this to happen, but he wondered what sort of people they were that would kill their own kind with such recklessness as they did? That would snuff sparks so similar to their own just for greed or power as the Decepticons so tirelessly did? What if his people began to enjoy war, and the killing? What if the Autobots won the war only to find they enjoyed killing so much that they turned on themselves, killing and killing and killing until there wasn't a spark of Primus left in all the universe?

BrightLine shuddered. These were not things to think on, they were rust thoughts, the kind that got in under your plating and ate you from the inside out. He had to believe in the good of his fellow Autobots, believe that they were fighting for a better world, for freedom and equality and peace, and nurture whatever good he could find in this desolation of war. He was a doctor, a healer, and he was going to _heal_  pitblastit.

With those thoughts in mind he thundered down the halls, pedes stomping, shaking the corridors with the wrath and force befitting an Autobot CMO. He was going to heal all the sorry-afted misclocking ungrateful glitching arrogant Automorons with maximum effectiveness, whether they liked it or not.

 

 

Jazz caught sight of Runner going down the hall with a box of datapads, which was normal, but unlike normal he was coming from the medbay with them when Jazz could have sworn he just saw the youngling heading there with them a few breems previously. He double checked his internal chronometer. No it wasn't time for the kid to be picking up the medical datapads to be delivered. Something was up.

Easily, smiling casually, Jazz fell into step next to the blue and gold youngling. No one knew who he had belonged to, just another orphan from the war they had let stay at the base (apparently command staff hadn't been able to get rid of him) on the condition that he help out by making sure all the confidential datapads and reports got to where they needed to go and stay out of the fighting until he was a full adult frame. Now that orn was not too far off, but the initially hot headed grief driven bitlet had matured into a much calmer more responsible near adult. Naturally he was already taller than Jazz (less than a tenth of the mecha on base were rated smaller than Warrior class) but having been shorter before he did not treat Jazz as if he were smaller and therefore lesser as most of the larger mechs of GasketRun did. Probably had to do with them mostly being Kaonites.

"Whatcha up to Runner?" Jazz asked with a smirk putting his hands behind his helm as he looked up at the slightly larger mech.

Runner glanced over at him and smiled. "Oh, you know, running messages, as always." He said with a shrug.

"Yeah, weren't you carryin' that same box when you came by here several breem back though?" Jazz asked curiously. "And I know it isn't time for the medical pads, our CMO might not be late in his reports but he never sends anything out early either."

"Oh, um, well." And Runner looked embarrassed. Immediately the youngling had _all_  of Jazz's attention because this smelled of intrigue. "Actually it is from tactical? They have been sending me to take work to Prowl and pick it up again after shift."

"What? The _injured_  tactician?" Jazz rolled that idea around a little. True Prowl had seemed to be coherent enough but still, the mech had no legs and was still on pain blockers. "I heard he really likes his work but that seems a bit excessive." He couldn't help but say.

"I know, right? Have you seen his legs?" Runner shuddered. "He's a mess. Anyway, this time I took the pads there, just like usual, but BrightLine turned me away saying Prowl's not allowed work on anything until he says so, and tell SharpEdge as much."

"Who're BrightLine and SharpEdge?" Jazz asked, hating to admit ignorance but the exact ranking of the obvious non-combs would come in handy for unraveling this drama.

Runner gave him a _look_. "How long have you been here?"

"Almost four vorns, it's a big base and I spend my time with the warriors, common soldiers. Can you name all of them? Because I can." Jazz said simply, without ire or accusation.

Runner processed that for a while then nodded. "BrightLine's CMO and SharpEdge is head of Tactical. You probably don't know him, he never goes out to battle."

Jazz made a face. "No, but I've heard. He's the cowardly one."

Runner winced and looked around, checking that no one was nearby. Interesting, Jazz's ops training said, sitting up and taking notice. "Don't let him hear you say that." The younger mech said softly, voice urgent. "He's... he's got a bit of a temper, and he's smart and cruel about revenge."

Jazz blinked slowly processing the data. "So... slow cold temper instead of fast explosive." Runner nodded miserably. "And he's been having Prowl doin work again even while he's in medbay." Another nod. "So... do ya know if it is something Prowl wants? I mean, I've heard he _likes_  to work, or do you know?" Runner was quiet and attentive, mostly ignored but allowed to go wherever he wanted on base. Mechs like that knew plenty of secrets, even if they didn't go out looking for them (And sadly Runner never seemed to, it was a pity, he'd make a good spec ops in spite of his size if he were just a bit more inquisitive).

"Sorry Jazz, dunno. Besides, we're here." The blue and gold mech nodded at the door in front of him that led to the tactical division. "And I wouldn't recommend asking SharpEdge." He added in a low hiss before palming over the reader and having the door open in front of him. And then Jazz got his first look into the tactical division of GasketRun. A wide holo-table with what looked like a previous battle set up and several tacticians clustered around it in quiet discussion. He didn't know their names, but he recognized them from battles. Tacticians who stood behind the lines, ready to shoot, and directing the battle they watched with keen optics. _Just like Prowl._

He couldn't help but notice that a couple of them were pretty attractive. Maybe he had been wrong in ignoring the non-combatants on base. That tall sleek gold one at the end almost looked like a femme (sort of like him, not the full shape, but leaning rather more that way than even Jazz) and he was sure he'd never seen ~~her~~ _him_  in battle. Was that SharpEdge? But no, the way everything was set up, the subtle lines of attention from every mech even as they spoke to each other, pointed at a different mech entirely as the one in charge. For a moment he made optic contact with the black, silver, and red Oversized frame with gold accents and a haughty sneer on his lips. Bingo. That must be the infamous SharpEdge.

Then the door slid shut and Jazz was left alone in the corridor. He hummed to himself briefly then headed for medbay, intending to get some more information. It was a pity really. If he had stayed for just a breem more he would have heard SharpEdge's yells of outrage and gotten a better idea of what exactly he was dealing with.

 

There was a conversation already going on when Jazz snuck into the medbay and went to listen at the door to Prowl's back room, pressing one dark audial against the door. "-isn't a big deal, he was just trying to get a reaction out of me. An excuse to get me written up for insubordination or thrown out or something. It doesn't matter." That mellow tenor sounded like Prowl's voice.

"You are defending him? Prowl, you are already recovering from major surgery and that tin plated moron hit you hard enough to dent, and don't think I didn't notice the marks of his fingers-"

"What are you doing here?" A much closer voice demanded and Jazz reeled up and away from the closed door, inwardly cursing himself for not noticing the other medic approach. The medic glowered at him, it was the one who had (badly) welded his faceplate back together. "You aren't allowed in here any more, not until you get really injured, remember?" The medic growled, crossing massive arms and flaring his patched plating aggressively.

Dang it, and it had been getting so good. So good he almost asked the medic what it was about. What sort of visitor could Prowl have that would hurt the mech, any injured mech? That was sick. "Ah'm not hurtin anything." He said giving the medic his most charming smile.

"Out!" He must be losing his touch because his perfect winning smile had zero effect on grump medic. An angry digit was pointed toward medbay doors while the other hand had pulled a large wrench from subspace. Jazz wisely fled. Oh well, there were other ways. Maybe he could hack security, he knew there were cameras in medbay just not certain about the private rooms. Even if he couldn't see _what_  had happened he should be able to find out _who_.

 

BrightLine, CMO of GasketRun Autobot Base.

Art by FoxTamer, aka BlueStreak the Catalyst

 


	8. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl is glad to finally be allowed to walk again, even if that is all all he's allowed. Even after all that they have done he's not going to be running any time soon, or driving. He can't transform with the internals still so mangled, and he is trying not to let the idea make his already stir-crazy frame go completely nuts. He _needs_ to drive, but being able to move around again will help at least

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh, it looks like Prowl and Patches are friends. I didn't expect that. And I'm pretty sure that Prowl hasn't realized it.  
> Why do the things I write always surprise me these days? I thought the writer was supposed to be in control *sulks*  
> This would have been up two days ago but Prowl and Patches had to talk EVEN MORE and crowded out the rest of the chapter D:<

"Here, you'll need this." The medic said, in a gentle rumble, too embarrassed to look Prowl in the optics. Not that Prowl was able to look at anything other than the sturdy length of metal being offered him.

"That..." His voice faded, vocalizer shutting off before the other words could get to it. Prowl rebooted it, listening to the clicking sounds and wishing it didn't sound so pathetic even to his own audials. Quietly his hands curled into fists, clenching in an effort to keep them from shaking. He shuttered his optics and ran a few quick scenarios in his mind to keep himself calm.

"It's called a cane. It is a medical device to help you keep your balance as you learn how to walk again, and until we get in the parts to finish the repairs to your legs." The medic said, voice uncertain. It was rare for any mechanism to remain crippled after repair. Among civilization there was very little that couldn't be repaired or, if worst came to worst, the damaged parts could simply be replaced with new ones identical to those the mechanism had come online with. Cybertronians didn't need canes. Not unless there was simply no competent medical aid to be found. Cybertronians didn't stay crippled. The only things that couldn't be repaired were some forms of processor damage and that only because there was too much danger of losing the mech's personality if it were replaced.

But there were disadvantages to being full kindled. If you weren't forged you could have parts that didn't fit with the norm, weren't easily replaced or substituted, or occasionally in the case of outliers, were entirely irreplaceable. Crossbred knockoff. You don't fit. The rules and natural protections that apply to everyone else aren't necessarily extended to you. It was logical to save the valuable parts during wartime for the other small frames on base who _were_  combatants, who needed full range of motion, and speed, to fulfill their purpose, especially since even then the parts would have to be modified to fit him. He knew the logical arguments, and had agreed with them when he'd faced them when he'd first onlined after the accident. But it was one thing to know and agree with it hypothetically, and another to sit there on the edge of the medical berth, cables and hydraulics unhappy just from bending at the knees, being offered a cane, a medical device no Cybertronian would ever naturally need while a single competent medic and basic materials could be found, with the unspoken understanding that he might never be able to walk without it again.

"Is... is it really necessary?" He asked finally, voice rough with emotion he was unable to hide. Stupid, so stupid. This wasn't a big deal. He understood and agreed with the logic behind each step. He had known this was a possible outcome. Except... except...

A large but gentle hand came down on his shoulder and Prowl looked up into Patches's gentle blue optics. "I am sorry Prowl. This is only temporary. We will get things the rest of the way repaired when we can. If worst comes to worst we can get someone from engineering to construct the parts we need to specification."

"Yes." Prowl replied, feeling a hollowness that had started at the pit of his fuel tank and slowly expanded until it swallowed him up entirely. "I understand." His optics went back to the cane. The argument was logical. Sooner or later the problem would be fixed, he would be fixed. So why did it feel like defeat simply to look at that simple chromed piece of metal? It was a temporary solution. The medics and his auto-repair systems had done all they could with what was available to them, and a new set of plating had been carefully re-affixed to cover his legs and pedes. He was as repaired as he was going to be until new parts could be acquired or re-forged. This was temporary. Just until they got the needed parts.

His hands remained where they were, curled fists at his sides.

This was silly. He would need the cane to walk and when he needed it no longer he would be rid of it. The whole process was sensible and logical and he agreed with every last step. But as the hollowness ate away at his internals, spark seeming to grow cold and distant, disconnecting from his frame, he could not force his hands to move. He could not make himself touch it.

Patches let out a sigh and carefully took Prowl's left hand in his larger ones, gently but insistently prying the fingers up from the palm, forcing them to uncurl one by one until the tactician's hand went entirely limp, Prowl's frame slumping slightly in defeat as the medic moved his un-resisting hand to the rubberized handle of the cane. Gently he curled the white fingers around the handle, letting them settle into the faint indents in the material as a sharp spasm went through Prowl's frame, something between a shudder and a flinch of being burned.

"I'm sorry." Prowl said softly, staring at his hand, curled around the handle of the cane. His sensornet had shut down in the whole arm, as if refusing to let itself be involved with something that felt so much like torture for reasons he couldn't begin to fathom. "I don't mean to be so much trouble."

"It's okay Prowl." Patches soothed, keeping one hand gently holding Prowl's in place on the cane's handle while the other went up to rub Prowl's shoulder.

Prowl shuddered again and his vents opened suddenly and he gasped softly, overheated from holding in his vents without noticing. "This shouldn't be a big deal. It's... It's just a cane, a crutch for until the parts come..." He took a couple deep vents to normalize his temperature and try to keep himself calm. Not that he wasn't in control. His field and face were their usual carefully controlled blankness and his frame language was passably normal. It wasn't even as if he was feeling strongly, as occasionally would disrupt his normal function. There was an edge of horror, of despair, but mostly he just felt... numb.

"It's okay to be upset Prowl. Feelings aren't always logical or reasonable. Sometimes they just _are_. Existing without a discernible cause." Patches gently rubbed large fingers along Prowl's shoulder, stroking along his pauldrons with the flow and faint curves of the plating. The feeling was slowly coming back in his left arm and hand. Experimentally the praxian twitched his fingers, feeling the slight give of the rubberized handle. Why did it make him feel like he was going to shatter into pieces?

Prowl shook his head. This was silly. He was being silly. He moved the cane, the medic helping him guide the end to the floor. Patches rose from his crouch, backing up slightly and moving his free hand to take Prowl's. "You ready?" The medic asked and Prowl, not certain he trusted his vocalizer to behave, simply nodded. Not letting himself hesitate he pushed upward, shifting forward and off the tall medical berth, shifting his weight but letting much of it center on his hands, one on the cane, the other supported by the medic helping him.

A hiss of pain escaped Prowl's vocalizer as his pedes touched down and a part of his weight came down on them, compressing his pistons and hydraulics, repaired struts and components protesting this, the first time anything had really been asked of them since they had been put back together. It hurt, but mostly it was the strain of disuse. Or at least that was what he told himself as he carefully shifted more and more weight off the berth and onto his arms and legs. "Shhh shh... that's right... nice and slow." Patches said in a soft soothing tone that made some of the tension in the tactician's back and shoulders relax, his sensorwings shifting slightly to return to their 'neutral' position.

Soon he was standing fully, feeling the lines of stress and strain where his auto-repair systems had been unable to fully re-integrate and smooth the welds that had put the components back into something resembling their correct shape. There was a tugging unpleasant stretching feeling in some places where too much metal had been lost and even after all the recovery the components and welds had not been able to be restored to their full dimensions, while other places, bits really, felt slightly loose, as if the metal had been warped, stretched too long or wide. The strange conflicting data coming in through the sensors was slightly disorienting and before he realized he was wobbling he had fallen into the medic's waiting arms. "Easy there Prowl. You feeling okay? You're not actin' like it's hurting but you gotta tell me what is going on. With all your field and systems muted the way you do it's hard for even us medics to get a proper read on you." Patches said with a brief chuckle.

Again the Medic's gentle words and comforting field made something wound tight in Prowl's chest unravel. As near as he could tell that was the reason why he just stayed where he was for a time, just resting against the medic tiredly as he adjusted to the dataflow. "It probably feels pretty awful, but even if there is a little pain it will stimulate your nanites to do a little more repair work, make it a little more comfortable at least." And Prowl's predictive software filled in the words the medic carefully did _not_  say. 'This is about as good as it is going to get until the parts come in or finish being machined.'

No, he could handle this, he could deal with this. Prowl pulled back slightly, venting slowly as he managed to balance on his pedes, using his cane to form a triangle, balance the forward/back direction as his pedes balanced side to side. This was easy, this was simple. Patches had moved to his side and Prowl took a slow step forward. With his battle computer running the calculations adjusting would be sparkling's play.

His knee buckled, internal components failing, some locking while others went lax. He fell forward with a cry only to have Patches catch him. Prowl's faceplate burned with humiliation. He'd fallen back on the normal motional protocols. He was going to have to modify them. "You are going to have to learn how to walk all over again." Patches said gently, echoing the tactician's thoughts as the medic carefully set him back on his pedes.

Prowl couldn't even look at him, staring down at his traitorous, aching legs and clenching his jaw tight. He just had to adjust, this wasn't a big deal. He wasn't upset. He shuttered and opened his optics several times in quick succession, forcing away the cleanser fluid that had decided to build up before it could spill out and form tears. "This is stupid. I should just be able to rewrite the protocols and walk just fine again."

"It is natural to fall back on what has always worked for you. You've never had any major frame modifications have you?"

"No."

Patches nodded. "Whenever there is a major frame modification the angles and torques at every joint change and you have to start all over re-coding how much force is necessary for all motions." Not that the servos and cabling and hydraulics were full functional order anyway. "It is always a struggle, but some can adjust more rapidly than others. You, I feel, will be a quick study."

"And if I can get to the point where I can walk across the room on my own I can be released from medbay today?"

"Yes Prowl," Patches sounded, very suddenly, less enthusiastic. "It would be better if you stayed a while longer, to get used to things, before you go back to active duty?"

Prowl snorted. "Active duty? I'm a crippled tactician Patches. All I will be doing is walking from tactical to mess to my quarters." He said bitterly, hearing a tiny voice in the back of his mind whispering at how useless and helpless and stupid he was. He pushed the voice away, focusing again on his legs. This time he watched them, optics narrowed, measuring, calculating every motion, every angle and adjusting, moving slowly while he watched the code running by with five processor threads, the rest not dedicated to essentials focused on calculating the effects, expected vs actual and creating the tweaks necessary to allow the automated protocols to function correctly. Two steps, four, eight. Getting easier now, adjusting the data-streams, writing sub-programs to interpret the data into a form more useful all the while backing up original copies of everything to be restored at a later date when his legs were fully repaired.

Prowl noticed when Patches carefully moved away, ceased helping the tactician support himself and move, though there was no outward indication he had noticed, Prowl was too focused on the task at hand. Patches probably thought he was being sneaky, and going to call to him in a minute and say-

"See? You are doing it, walkin' all on your own again." Patches said in a cheerful, encouraging tone. Prowl's sensor wings twitched, and he automatically noted how that shifted his balance with his new legs. All on his own except for the cane. Primus he hated that little chromed piece of metal. But it was sturdy enough and it _was_  helping with balance issues and took some of the strain off his abused legs. Already they were starting to get a bit sore. Prowl did a half circuit of the room, calculating that he would be able to still get back to his quarters so long as he was careful and didn't walk around much more this orn. "It will get a bit easier after the first couple orns as your components get used to walking again."

Prowl leaned against the wall slightly and looked up at Patches hovering nearby, the medic's strong soothing field brushing against him gently. "So can I go then?" He asked, keeping his voice and field neutral, not wanting to let the medic see how tired he was.

Patches frowned a bit. "If you must." He said with a bit of a shrug. He had long ago learned that while soft spoken, the tactician was as hard helmed as any Autobot, and when he calculated he was capable of work again he was almost impossible to stop. Then, abruptly, the medic seemed to cheer again. "Well, come on then, lets see you out. You've got a visitor."

Prowl's processor stalled, and he only barely avoided a full crash. He shuttered his optics, frantically shifting data around and easing the pressure off his logic circuits and away from the utter impossibility of what Patches had just said. In fact, he went and deleted that data entirely, letting his mind adjust and calm and prepare before asking. "What... did you say?"

Patches gave him an elated grin. "You've got a _visitor_." The mech said and waggled his brow ridges suggestively, something Prowl hadn't previously realized was possible.

"Prowl? Prowl can you hear me?" His audio center was parsing the words together with difficulty, audials still ringing slightly as he struggled to boot up again correctly. Something had scattered all the well organized processor threads and it was difficult to pick them all up again. Clearly he had crashed. His optics came online about the same time as his sensor wings, revealing he was laying on the medical berth again, on his back. Stupid finicky processor. Fine, he had a visitor, and for some reason Patches thought it was funny. Big deal, nothing to crash over. He just must have been pushing too hard with rewriting all his motional coding so fast. "Prowl?"

"Yes Patches, I am alright." He said, tone even, sitting up.

"As your medic I am going to advise you to stay an extra orn." Patches said cautiously.

"Your advice is noted." Prowl said and smiled ever so slightly. "But I must get back to my work." It was probably Runner, with hate mail from SharpEdge. He didn't let himself calculate the probabilities. He had more important things to devote his processing power to, especially as the slave code modifications were proving more stubborn than he had hoped.

Patches sighed and helped Prowl back to his feet, pressing the cane back into Prowl's left hand. He offered one arm to Prowl, crouching a bit so as to be closer to the smaller mech's level, it still wasn't quite a comfortable fit with his hand gripping the large framed medic's forearm. The height was wrong. But it was still helpful, allowing Prowl to shift some of the weight off his aching legs. The more he could ease the burden on them now, the less it would hurt getting back to his room. The fingers of his right hand found a rough patch, literally, on the medic's forearm. Idly they moved along the edge, exploring how it slanted inward just slightly ending at the welds that held the purely decorative patch in place. Clever, wouldn't catch on anything like that which would be a liability when your work was with the wounded. The mech had covered himself in more than a dozen of the ornamental patches, a slightly eccentric homage to his name. "Tickles." The larger frame rumbled drawing an unconscious smile from Prowl.

"So it is fully sensitive?"

"Made of true slats of plating." The medic boasted, field swelling with pride.

Prowl's sensor wings twitched and angled, focusing better on the patch. "But the welds feel raw all the time."

"How'd you know?" Surprise flaring in the medic's normally even keeled field.

"Same way I've always known the plating under them is perfectly intact, and the rivets are just molded into the surface." Just the faintest bit of smugness in Prowl's own field. His sensor wings twitched and rotated and angled for a few more kliks before settling again back into their neutral position close to his back and parallel to the ground. "They aren't just for show. Pick up on things." _Like that you are a female cybertronian and still in your original frame though you did get the army medic plating upgrade._  "When are you going to tell Brightline?" He couldn't keep the amusement out of his tone, and decided that perhaps, here with Patches, he could let it show. Of all the mechs on base Patches was the one he felt closest to. Though that was much because Patches was the one who dealt with most of medical problems Prowl faced with his unusual frame and unique battle computer. It was unlikely that someone like Patches would have spent enough time around Prowl to like him had not work forced it to be so.

"Tell Brightline what? That you are leaving? I already updated him."

"No, that you like him."

Patches stopped with a sharp suddenness and half spun to face him, optics overly bright. Prowl simply shifted, leaning his weight onto the cane, alert to the doors and labs branching off from the hallway, for anyone walking in on this. "How'd you know?"

A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "It took me a while but you always light up when he is around, or you think of him. The sensors pick up as much as most medical models in some respects."

Patches whistled, an almost impossible feat among a mechanical race such as theirs, optics traveling over Prowl's sensor wings lit by something resembling awe. "I was helping Bright when he was lookin' at the damaged one, couldn't make heads or tails of it. Not surprising now, medic grade sensors are strange intricate things, though yours don't look like quite like those either."

Prowl shrugged, the tips of his wings flicking as well. "Praxians are... unusual. And very secretive about the construction of our auxiliary sensor panels. I fear the frame engineers are jealous of anyone else copying their work. Even I haven't got the full specs in my databanks and you know how I collect information." Something he was going to have to rectify when he had time and the right parts. He had lost more than just normal motor components when he had scrapped his legs. The medics probably hadn't even realized what was missing. Unusual frame indeed, who ever heard of a mech with databanks in their legs? Ironically they may have helped reduce the damage to his hydraulics and might be the reason he could still walk without full part reconstruction or replacement. He leveled an intent, impassive stare at the young medic. "Brightline?" He prompted.

Patches shifted, pulling his field in abruptly in an effort to hide his embarrassment. He looked away. "You know how he feels about... about... biomechanoids..." He said bitterly and both of them winced slightly at the word, which had never been intended to be a slur, simply a description, but nevertheless had become one. At least Patches was close enough to standard that it wasn't obvious he was full kindled, born, as all biomechanoids were, rather than forged.

"Mechs change. And he respects you Patches."

"Oh? And what about you and Jazz?" Patches didn't quite snap, but it was a near thing, his plating even flaring slightly, something the even tempered medic usually reserved for subduing unruly patients.

It was Prowl's turn to flinch. His optics focused on the floor and he could feel his sensorwings droop slightly. "That is different."

"Oh _really_?"

"Yes." Prowl forced himself to meet Patches's optics, allowing the medic to see the pain there so Patches would be able to make the required emotional connection to listen to Prowl's words. He hated it, even subdued as it was, allowing his pain to be visible like this made him feel so vulnerable. "Brightline respects you. He works with you, he knows who you are, your true nature, from the work you do as a healer. Perhaps he does not return your affections but his spark and mind have been slowly changing as the war has progressed, he is not so... inflexible as he once was. His disdain for... our kind has lessened, in great part because of you I believe."

"Really?" And there was a nervous hope in the medic's optics and frame language. Probably blaring from his field too, though that was out of reach and Prowl was not the sort to reach out to others. "Is that from your spark or your tactical computer?" Patches asked, optics narrowing in sudden suspicion.

Prowl frowned. "From my spark?" What did his spark have to do with any of this? "I merely state the facts, and observations. The speculations I have voiced all have a greater than 95% accuracy in this instance."

"It is always numbers with you." Patches said, sounding disappointed but not disapproving at least. Prowl had heard those words spoken with such hate, so very many times in his function. Even now, though spoken with no venom they hurt to hear. He dropped his gaze again and soon felt Patches' field uncoil and reach out to him again, gentle, soothing, accepting.

But Prowl didn't want that kind of contact, not right now, even if he had allowed it earlier. He pulled away, actually backing up an unsteady two steps as he tucked his field away beneath his armor. "Numbers are my function, just as healing is yours." He said, voice slightly stiff, hiding everything. Sometimes his numbers isolated him from others. They did not understand, but that did not matter. He had his function, his purpose, and he needed to be getting back to it. He didn't need to be understood, he needed to useful, to protect and aid, as he was created to do, as his creators had been created to do. Here in the medbay the only mech he was useful to was himself, working at the slave code. Thankfully there had been no major battles while he was here, but he needed to get back to work, back to tactical to do everything he could to keep the other Autobots alive. "I must get going. I have work."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MadLennox made me ART! I am the most spoiled writer! I'm sure you can tell what scene this is. I've put it up in the correct chapter too but it will be hanging out here for a while too so you all can see it even if you aren't rereading. Go tell them they are great  
>  https://archiveofourown.org/works/12305979 
> 
>  
> 
> There is a reason Jazz is having nightmares


	9. Visitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl leaves medbay, or he tries to. He's badly damaged but he can walk now, even if it is slowly.
> 
> And it seems someone has come to help cheer him up a little too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I had writers block this week really bad. All my fics have suffered, hopefully I will be back on track this coming week.  
> I am full of sorry

By the time the two mechs had entered the main room of the medbay, the knowledge of having a visitor had drifted to the very back of Prowl's processor, supplanted by quick analysis of the number of patients (almost none) and their reasons for being there (mostly routine maintenance and checkups, it seemed that of all those injured in the most recent battle he was the only one left who hadn't been discharged) though a few of his processor threads were still quietly chipping away at the femme code problems, and further fortifying him against the influence of a certain special ops agent. A thing for which he was profoundly grateful for when he looked up toward the entrance of the medbay and saw Jazz leaning against the door frame, an easy smirk on his face.

Prowl blinked stupidly, reviewing again Patches's words, the suggestive brow ridge wiggle, the smugness radiating from the medic's field, and the partially integrated clumsy welds that spread across Jazz's faceplate in a delicate branching of scars. He had done that. Prowl felt something inside him cringe at the memory even as the femme code was ranting on about mate and master and how improbably gorgeous the mech was even with his face so brutally scarred. He didn't crash, but it was a close thing.

He could feel Patches's smugness as an almost overwhelming beat in the field behind him, the larger frame's EM field practically suffocating as Patches nudged at him with it, much as he would have been lightly elbowing Prowl if he had been standing beside him instead of behind. No wonder the medic had been so eager for Prowl to meet his visitor. Prowl almost made a face, annoyed and embarrassed, but his processor was whirring back to life and he managed to keep his expression blank though his optics and faintly raised sensor wings showed his rising anger as Jazz shifted to stand upright, a smirk on his lips. He opened his mouth to speak but Prowl beat him to it. "No." He snapped and turned around, nearly stumbling as he scrambled to modify the protocols controlling the movement to compensate for his unsteady legs and the cane.

"Oi!" Jazz called behind him, sounding surprised and disappointed, but Prowl ignored him.

In front of him was Patches, partly blocking the hall back to the private rooms. Prowl moved to the left only to have Patches mirror the motion, remaining in his way. Prowl tried moving to his right with the same result. He turned his head upward to give the young medic a calculated glare. "Excuse me." He all but snapped even as he wondered if he really was intending to go back to his medical room and hide like some petulant sparkling.

Patches grinned down at him evily. "Something wrong?" He asked innocently. Clearly Patches had shifted back to shipping him with Jazz again, despite the argument and facebreaking that had happened during their last encounter. And Prowl could feel Jazz closing the distance between them even now through his auxiliary spacial sensors in his wings. No no no no no.

"Let me through." He ground out, voice icy, field pulled in as tight as he could manage, unable to trust his ability to control it fully. Jazz was closing in on him and Patches wasn't letting him through. Suddenly he felt trapped, an overwhelming need to flee exploding inside of him like a miniature solar flare. Power surged through him, stored chemicals releasing into his fuel lines to prime every component and system for fight or flight. Prowl clamped his jaw shut, feeling his frame starting to tremble with excess energy. As _if_ he could run in this state. He hadn't even begun to modify the protocols that controlled 'running' and there was a 84.924% probability that he would not be able to even double his new normal walking speed with his legs as damaged as they were, and that was calculated with the very improbable condition that he didn't trip or otherwise stumble or fall. Either one of the two could catch him at that speed without even breaking into an easy run.

"Aww cummon Prowler, had to wait a whole quartex to see ya acause the medics wouldn't let me in." Jazz said in a half complaining voice, reaching out toward him.

Prowl dulled the sensors in one wing and used it to smack the hand away before it could touch him. The plating was thicker on his sensor wings than any other part of him naturally and the impact hadn't dented his sensor wing. Jazz's fingers on the other hand now had small but very painful dents on the tips, and for most Cybertronians the hands were the most sensitive part of the frame, loaded with the sensors required to allow the fine motor skills necessary to not to destroy everything they touched. He felt a small grim satisfaction at Jazz's wince and would have glared at the mech over his shoulder but his wings were angled too far upward blocking his view, for all that they were also flaring away from his torso slightly in a show of aggression. Reluctantly he turned part way to level a frosty glare at the mech, more than a little relieved that Jazz's chemosensors hadn't picked up on the flush of cyber-adrenaline running through him. Patches's certainly had but few beyond actual medics had the usually superfluous full complement of olfactory sensors.

Jazz was looking down at his injured hand, rubbing at the dents in the primary two fingers gently and grimacing. "Yeah... I probably deserved that." He said ruefully.

At least he recognized that. "What do you want Jazz?" Prowl asked flatly, flared sensor wings trembling with otherwise well concealed anger.

Jazz winced slightly and momentarily dropped his gaze as if embarrassed, something unusual enough that Prowl's tactical programming actually flagged it. His anger faded slightly, sensor wings going still. "Well first off I wanted to apologize fer... ya know... that joke." Jazz rubbed the back of his helm sheepishly then leveled his visor to meet Prowl's optics, giving a charming smile. He startled visibly when the smile failed to soften the tactician's cold expression, if anything making it even _more_ disapproving. Jazz's visor flickered a couple times in confusion and the smile became somewhat lopsided, but Prowl had the distinct impression that he'd just gone up in the mech's esteem for his refusal to be charmed. Perhaps the Spec Ops found it a challenge, if there was anything Jazz's records showed it was that he loved a good challenge. Great, Prowl wanted to have less attention not more. "I tend to push the boundaries with mah jokes and so not all of them are funny." Prowl continued to glare. "And some are downright offensive, in a lot of ways. I am truly sorry, as much as I thought it was a funny idea those words never shoulda come outta my mouth."

"Apology accepted." Prowl said, forcing his tone and expression to be calm and even. Get rid of Jazz. Get rid of him now. Besides, it was an earnest apology, and he could read true regret in the mech's frame language and attitude, he wasn't just putting on a show. _And you only know that because you've been quietly watching him from the shadows for so very long._

Jazz smirked. "No."

 _What?_ "What?" Prowl checked the recent audio input twice to make sure he had heard correctly. He could feel heat building in his helm as his logic circuits tried to force the denial to make some sort of sense. He had spent much of his life studying social interactions (so as to better communicate with his emotion driven, illogical fellow mechanisms) and everything he had learned, every permutation of apology sequences, said this did not happen, could not happen.

"No, I do not accept your acceptance of my apology." He said pointing a finger at Prowl triumphantly, as if he had just put Prowl into checkmate in a game of full stasis rather than gone off on some ridiculously illogical tangent. Prowl had a sudden urge to grab Jazz by the helm and smash his smug smiling face into a nearby table. Partly because he also had a sudden urge to grab the smiling mech by the helm and kiss him as he stood there laughing at the world and setting at defiance all the normal rules and formulas. Dang it. This would be so much easier if he didn't genuinely like the mech, if he didn't admire Jazz's way with people and grace in social situations, and absolute refusal to give up under even the most trying of circumstances. Jazz, who would never leave a mech behind, no matter the odds. Prowl's spark fluttered at the thought.

 _But he left you behind. The mech who didn't leave his most hated rival behind, a mech who was kicked out of the Autobot army not much later, despite how desperate the cause was for real warriors, for being an awful disgusting scumbag, still left you behind._  Prowl's spark clenched painfully and he sensed his optics dimming, cursing his inability to stop that display of emotion. But that was how it always was. He was always outside the normal rules. Always the exception. _But it was the right choice, you both knew it, and he **did** come back for you._ He wouldn't be alive if Jazz hadn't come back for him. He owed the mech his life. "What do you mean you don't accept? Unless I am _greatly_  mistaken, you do not have a say in the matter of my accepting or refusing your apology."

"Yeah you would think that, but this time I am not going to be brushed off so easily."

"Are you implying that my declaration of accepting your apology was less than sincere?" Prowl asked, barely able to keep his jaw from clenching as his processor whirred trying to come up with all the different ways this might play out. As usual Jazz was drawing out his emotions in a way few others could. But there was some curiosity in the question too, not just anger. He rather wanted to find out what was going through the erratic spec ops's processor, to dissect exactly why he so consistently failed to follow the social norms (and why other mechs liked it when Jazz did and hated it when Prowl did) and still defied odds and probabilities at every turn. Jazz was a fascinating anomaly. Yes, focus on that and not the contours of his sleek hybridized racer's frame.

Jazz rocked back on his pedes, taken aback. "Wull... no not really." He paused and leaned forward an intent look on his face. "Why? _Were_ you being dishonest with me?" And he was radiating a sincere curiosity, as innocent and earnest as a sparkling, his field stretching out to make contact with Prowl's.

Prowl took half a step back, practically into the silently gleeful Patches, and Jazz withdrew his field again, holding his hands up in surrender. {This is all your fault.} Prowl fumed over a private comm with Patches. His only reply was a deep rumbling snicker. Patches was absolutely terrible sometimes. No wonder Prowl had no friends. "No I was-" But he broke off mid sentence because _the very moment_ he had started speaking Jazz had too, talking right over him.

"I suppose it doesn't really matter, seeing as the results are the same. And as you might say, it is illogical to bother knowing the answer if it has no bearing on my behavior or somethin'." Jazz drawled, speaking over Prowl and grinning smugly as Prowl's sensorwings angled upward again in a rare display of emotion, actually trembling with anger. "Ya know, yer pretty cute when yer mad Prowler."

Was this infuriating mech trying to make him crash? "You trying to dig yourself another pit to apologize your way out of Jazz?" He only barely managed not to snarl, systems whirring as his vents sped up to combat the rising heat. Control, he had to regain control. He set several sets of calculations running through his battle computer, steadying himself with numbers and logic and reasoning. There, he could feel it coming, systems calming with his spark and the involuntary emotional reactions linked to it.

"Th' others say yah got nothin' in ya, no 'motions, but you seem emotional enough to me." Jazz snickered with a cyberpuma smirk. "Maybe it's just because you don't let anyone close enough to see it." He added, visor gleaming intently.

"Don't let anyone close? I have never done anything to discourage others from communicating with me." Prowl said, voice expressionless, sensorwings back to their base position as he'd wrested full control back from his autonomous systems.

Jazz gave an overly patient sigh. "See, that's where yer wrong Prowl."

"Really." Prowl said flatly. "Care to enlighten me?"

"That's it, right there. What you are doing right now." Prowl gave Jazz a disapproving glare. "Ya might not _say_ you don't want them around, but your behavior on the other hand. All cool and aloof, you do seem sorta like a drone at first, especially with how ya talk and all. Ya just seem awful cold and sharp, though not quite enough personality to seem arrogant." Jazz frowned giving Prowl an intent look. "Don't ya know? I thought you did it on purpose."

Prowl gave a small shrug. "I treat everyone equally, but my programming often causes conflicts with others." In other words, he lacked social graces. The sheer emotionality of other mechanisms was mind boggling and even after all this time of study and careful notes and observations he still found them hard to relate to or properly deal with. "This is all a moot point. Friends are unnecessary to my function. We don't all need to be the center of attention." And he managed to keep that comment calm and even too, without blame or even annoyance. It was fine. He was always rather disliked, this place this time was no different. Besides, friends were a dangerous distraction in war, especially for a tactician whose entire purpose was to think and protect all no matter the situation.

"You are a hard mech Prowl, I think ya could use some friends to soften ya up. 'sides, I think the warriors wouldn't be so hard on ya if they got to know you a little. You really are cute when yer mad."

"Oh har har har." Prowl said, an old social phrase he had memorized long ago even though he still wasn't completely certain of its meaning, and rolled his optics. "I assure you, the last thing I need is to have a bunch of oversized warriors pestering me to see if they can rile me up. Contrary to popular belief no attention _is_ better than negative attention so I'd rather you _not_ go around repeating that foolishness to everyone."

"I wonder..." Jazz said, reaching out toward Prowl with an expression Prowl couldn't let himself analyze because even the most superficial analysis was coming back as a strain of desire and those were dangerous thoughts to think with the femme slave code demanding he please the other mech. Already he could feel his hands twitching, aching to reach out to touch the object of his own desire.

It was a desire for information in Jazz's expression, Prowl told himself firmly, nothing more. Someone like Jazz would never want someone like him.

Jazz had seen Prowl flinching back and had held back, giving Prowl a puzzled look. Then he shook his head and gave the tactician an easy smile. "Anyhows. I know for all you are finally being released from medbay you aren't exactly in verra good condition and I sorta... I sorta thought I might be able to help you get around? I mean." Jazz was so good with words and speaking, Prowl could swear he'd never heard him stumble and hesitated so much _ever_. "I'm sure it hurts to walk, fer now at least and... I'd like to help, even if it is just a little." Jazz fidgeted as Prowl stared at him blankly trying to compute. "It's parta why I'm here, not just to apologize, but.... I mean... you've done so much fer me, and the others too, not just with the incident the other orn bailing me out like you did. For... for all that you are a tactician not a warrior, I've been reviewing things and yeh've never steered us wrong. We all owe you, maybe all the tacticians, not just me 'n not just with all you sacrificed to save mah hide when I got stuck behind enemy lines and the Torquetantula and all that." He hesitated, leveling that cool blue visor, the hidden optics behind it still seeming to laser their way right into Prowl's spark. "Ah wouldn't be here t'were it not for you. Ah owe you mah life." He said in quiet brutal honesty.

Dang it. Primus blast it all. If he didn't know better he'd think Jazz was doing all this on purpose just to get to him. How was it that this erratic, half mad special ops agent managed to get under his plating and pull his spark every which way? He felt so raw and exposed before him, a lone mech without shelter before the might of a primal storm. Endlessly shifting, unpredictable, overpowering, drawing the emotions out of Prowl as no one else could, as if his defenses built over a lifetime meant nothing to that unstoppable force that was Jazz.

"What do you want?" Prowl asked meekly, sensorwings drooped to an almost submissive angle, feeling so very small and embarrassingly weak in his already aching knees. He almost winced. Very poorly worded question. He didn't like how it stirred the slave code, how it prickled and listened with the obvious intent to bind him to whatever Jazz answered. And yet, would it really be so bad to go along with whatever the black and white and blue mech wanted? Such a bright and kind spark, a true Autobot spark, for all that he tried to hide it with jokes and teasing and the many different fronts he put on, the parts he played among the other warriors.

Or was that just the femme code issues making him feel this way? But he had wanted this before too right? He'd wanted to spend time with Jazz. Talking to him, casually interacting, he remembered those idle daydreams from before. So then, at least some of it was originally his. So what percent was from the femme code modifications? He could already feel his battle computer gathering pertinent data to make such a calculation but what use was that? His personality core had been so thoroughly modified he no longer knew what it looked like before. The backups in his room would help with that at least. 72.495% probability.

It took him a moment to realize that Jazz wasn't in front of him anymore, but almost beside him. Blast, he'd let himself get distracted by his thoughts again. Automatically he shied away and got his misfiring legs tangled up in his cane. He began to fall yet again only to have Patches's hands catch him under his shoulder joints, easily lifting him back onto his pedes. Prowl grimaced with embarrassment. "See, he's still having trouble getting used to operating his legs as they are now." Patches said, as if continuing a conversation with Jazz. (He hadn't been that out of it had he? Surely if they had been talking it had been on comms rather than out loud and he'd been too internalized to notice.)

"I see." Jazz said seriously, though there was that faint musical lilt back in his voice, his systems almost purring with interest and satisfaction as he sidled up to Prowl, taking up position by his side as Patches finally withdrew his hands and let Prowl take back his own weight. "So like this?" Jazz asked, taking Prowl's right forearm and laying it atop his own, his palm upward as he laced his fingers with Prowl's. Again Prowl's spark throbbed, he had taken Jazz's hand almost without thinking, anchoring himself to the offered support. But now he stared at his hand as if it had betrayed him, locking his field down hard to keep his roiling emotions from broadcasting.

"Exactly right, then he can lean on you and take some of the pressure off his legs. It is still going to hurt for a while at least but working the components will spur some more repair from the nanites and prevent atrophy." He was holding hands with Jazz. Primus, how had that happened? He could hear Patches speaking in the background but barely, almost all his expanded processors focusing in on that one fact, zeroing in on the image and recording as they whirred to compute and analyze the phenomena.

"What's atrophy?"

"Oh you know, the "use it or lose it" you warrior types say. If you aren't using certain systems they can get their priority dropped and develop problems from disuse or even, in times of famine, be reabsorbed to be used to keep the higher priority systems functional."

Alarm flared in Jazz's field. "Holy scrap? does that really happen?"

"Yes." Prowl heard the single syllable leave his mouth though he couldn't tell where it had come from. Probably from whatever processor threads were monitoring the conversation while the rest of him was absorbed by the sight of Jazz's black fingers lightly gripping the back of his own white hand. He was holding Jazz's hand.

"Ah, so ya'are still with us eh? Patches says you sometimes zone out workin out problems n stuff. Do you really spend so much time workin on tactics?" Jazz asked, pulsing his curiosity at Prowl gently, forcing Prowl to feel the honesty of his emotions.

"Yes, spend a lot of off the clock time working on tactics." Prowl replied almost automatically, so very grateful for the cover that implication provided. The _last_ thing he wanted was for Jazz to realize he was so knocked off balance just from holding his _hand_. He felt a inexplicable temptation to give the other's hand a small squeeze but managed to control himself. _Holy Primus, I'm holding hands with **Jazz**._  Fired off in his processor once again as he felt Jazz's field shift to thoroughly impressed and was that gratitude edging it? or awe? No, surely not. He knew how Jazz felt about tacticians, and him in particular. He had to hold onto what he knew was true, not get distracted by current events, or shifting situations. Hold onto the facts, don't update them, don't let Jazz lull you into a false sense of security. Because he knew that, even if Jazz really did start developing feelings for him (quite impossible, or at least very temporary knowing Jazz's history), permitting himself to believe such a thing would allow the slave code the leverage it needed to damn him forever.

"He's not allowed to go to work today, just to his quarters for rest. Tomorrow, if his legs are alright and his stamina holds, he can go on to Tactical. I'll trust you to make sure he get to his quarters safely and no where else?" Patches was saying to Jazz. It was abundantly clear that Patches had somehow arranged for things to work out this way. Probably by just letting Jazz know when Prowl was being released and leaving the rest to Jazz's feeling of being indebted to him, but still.

Jazz nodded and gave the medic a smile. "As you command Patches. Ah'll make sure he doesn't over exert himself or sneak off to work." And then he turned his helm to meet Prowl's gaze, a flicker of uncertainty whispering through his normally confident field. "If you can put up with me for that long."

Prowl looked away, embarrassed though his field and systems lock prevented it from being evident. Well at least Jazz hadn't caught on to him liking the spec ops. "If I must." He said, almost indifferently though a bit of his nervousness could be heard.

"Excellent. Let's go then." Jazz said cheerily and made as if to rush off dragging Prowl behind him. Prowl's predictive software delivered to him several different runthroughs of such a scenario complete with the probability of occurrence for each and their accompanying predicted damage reports. But instead of his normal eager haste Jazz carefully matched his steps with Prowl's hesitating ones as they headed out of the medbay, keeping his forearm at the exact same height as he moved smoothly forward, as steady as if he had trained to assist those struggling to walk which was, statistically speaking, impossible.

{Have fuuuuuun.} Patches managed to communicate a leer over the private channel even with just those two words.

{I swear to Primus Patches, I will get you back for this.} Even if he did enjoy it, a little. Not as much as if the femme slave code wasn't looming over him like a skyscraper sized tidal wave waiting to crash over him, but still he could allow himself to enjoy this at least a little bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Praxian doorwings: blunt weapon of last resort
> 
> Prowl: Crap, I phrased that poorly, now I have to go along with whatever he says he wants  
> Jazz: I wanna help you walk home  
> Prowl: O.o that is... surprisingly innocuous...
> 
> Also apparently everything Jazz is learning about medical things in this fic freak him out, atrophy and the rules about part replacement for 'inessential' personnel. Wait until he hears about more serious things later on.


	10. I'll Walk You Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz walks Prowl back to his quarters and is met with an unusual surprise  
> SharpEdge is a jerk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for being gone so long, I got burned out (apparently weekly chapters for 3 major fics at the same time is more than I can handle. I've been stuck on this chapter for literally 3 months, slowly chipping away at it. The rest better get easier!  
> Happy New Year! Hopefully updates will happen better noooooooow!

 

The walk to Prowl's quarters was blissfully peaceful at first. And Prowl discovered if he offlined his optics the femme code didn't bother him as much. Clearly the programs for identifying a femme's 'master' was not designed with praxian sensor wings in mind. No surprise there. Most of the gender upgrades' software was made elsewhere and praxians were an unusual frame type. Besides he could 'see' well enough with his auxiliary sensors, especially the extensive spatial ones located in his sensor wings. True he was basically color blind but that was hardly necessary to get back to his room.

It was a nice silence, calm and peaceful, and Prowl was used to quiet. It was kind of funny to see Jazz so quiet though. He was usually so talkative, but Prowl had been watching him long enough to have seen him in quiet times even on base. It was a given he spent much of the time on missions in silence, but while on base he talked and chatted and joked as if to make up for lost time. It was also strange to have him all to himself. Jazz was rarely alone, and always so light and quick on his feet. He had trouble holding still and had a love of speed even in his root mode. And yet here he was, walking so slowly as Prowl hobbled along on his weak legs and thumping cane. It was... touching. He was taking time and putting forth quite an effort just to help Prowl get back to his quarters.

Prowl let out a tiny contented sigh, little more than a silent puff of air. This felt so nice, and in a way that didn't seem to have anything to do with the femme code trying to strangle him. It wasn't quite like his daydreams, but similar enough. The silence was almost... what was the word people used? Companionable? It was nice.

But after walking several breems he noticed that Jazz was casting subtle glances his way, peering at him out the corner of his visor as Prowl kept his helm and unseeing optics dead ahead. There was an odd look on the Ops Agent's face. Puzzled, almost unsettled even.

Prowl didn't like that expression. "What are you looking at?" He asked, a prickle to his voice. It was pretty obvious that Jazz was looking at him, but for some reason _that_  question was the socially correct way of drawing attention to that fact. Social rules were stupid. It would have been more logical to ask 'why are you looking at me like that?' especially since that _was_  the question the other would answer, but social rules were incomprehensibly arbitrary.

"You're... so small." Jazz said after a few silent moments. Oh that, of _course_  it was that. There was a faint feeling of disappointment, but perhaps it was better that the mech was actually talking to him about it instead of just believing the rumors. "I'm not used to being around any mechs my own size, much less smaller than me." Jazz's tone was carefully polite curiosity, far less offensive than how most sounded when they brought up the subject. They were usually _utterly_  condescending, as if smaller also meant lesser.

Prowl shuttered his optics, more out of habit than actual blocking out his view. With his visual center offline anyway it didn't affect his ability to perceive his surroundings. "Yes, I am most certainly not quite so big as the smallest of standard Cybertronian sizes." Prowl could feel annoyance rising inside him. He knew what was coming. It happened every blasted time. He hated it.

Jazz was quiet a while, walking by his side, helping support the slightly smaller mech as he brooded and finally asked the inevitable question. "So... was your"

"No." Prowl snapped, before Jazz could finish the question. "My carrier was not a minibot."

"Oh." Jazz paused a moment staring at Prowl intently. And then, as always, the other question came. "So then"

"No, my sire wasn't either. He was a two wheeler but he was the smallest _standard_  frame size like you." Prowl said voice cold, trying to march forward in sharp military fashion as one of the only ways he ever expressed his frustration, but having a cane and slightly wobbly legs made that impossible.

"So... why _are_  you so small then?" Jazz asked, and Prowl could feel the ops agent's curious gaze against the side of his helm.

Prowl kept his gaze fixed straight ahead. Even with his optics off he didn't want to look into that expression. His environmental sensors could pick up most of it anyway, they were higher quality than most, even if some were missing from the part of his left sensorwing that had been torn away and the components unable to be replaced. There was a long pause as he wrangled his feelings down. "The medical term is stunted."

"What does that mean?"

"If a full kindled is born before they have reached the final developmental stage, or suffer another severe shock or trauma while a sparkling the damage to their systems can cause a permanent decrease in their full adult size."

"What? Like they don't finish growing or they cant? Primus, like their spark can't support their full size any more, you are talking permanent spark damage?"

"It depends on the circumstances, but yes, permanent spark damage be the cause." Prowl said, field dulling with misery. He felt a sudden surprise from the mech to his right and realized, too late, that he hadn't been muting his field fully and the spec ops agent had felt it. His sensorwings vibrated slightly in embarrassment and he turned his head away, as if examining the far wall as the walked.

"Is it... the case for you?" Jazz asked carefully, far more gentleness and concern in his voice than Prowl could deal with. He knew what Jazz thought of tacticians, knew the ops agent's eternal hatred against them for the deaths of so many of his comrades. He knew the numbers too, he'd memorized Jazz's file long ago, even though, from a moral standpoint, he shouldn't have. But some things were hard _not_  to accidentally memorize. He was a tactical model, they were _designed_  for data absorption. And his experimental modifications had only enhanced that quality in him.

It didn't help that he had found the mech fascinating.

Prowl shivered faintly, field going so blank it barely existed. "That is between me and my medic." He said simply, voice empty of any emotion. He didn't know honestly, he had always been too afraid to have it checked, and the medic visits when he was a youngling to check why he had stopped growing prematurely were a confused blur. Besides, it hardly mattered _why_  he was stunted. Just that he was.

"I see." Again there was silence. It was not companionable anymore. It was almost unpleasant. What did Jazz think of him now? Did he pity him? That look on his face hinted at such a thing. Prowl hated to be pitied. He wasn't lesser than anyone. He was small but he was strong, and he fulfilled his function. He did his part. He wasn't less than anyone. He was just as good as any of the rest of them.

Maybe the silence was fine, it was just him. He could tell Jazz was cautiously trying to reach out to him with his field but Prowl wasn't interested. He didn't _want_  to know what the other mech was feeling. He had a hard enough time dealing with his own emotions at the moment, reworking his train of thought to things less distressing. And then it was the pain of his legs getting to him. But they were more than halfway to his quarters. He could make it. He just had to keep going.

"Hey." Jazz suddenly said, looking concerned "you okay mech?"

"I'm fine." Prowl answered, wincing a bit as a sharp pain raced up from his legs.

"Liar." Jazz narrowed his optics behind his visor. "I can see that you're hurting"

 _If it is so obvious then why did you bother asking?_ "The pain is tolerable." Prowl intoned instead, keeping his voice a carefully schooled indifference, repressing even the irritated twitching of his sensor wings. "I will be able to continue for the entirety of the distance we have left to traverse."

"There ya go again." Jazz half growled. "Going all formal and stiff and all... drone speak. Don'tcha ever relax a little?" Jazz scrutinized the mech at his side intently. "Just what _are_ ya afraid of?"

"That's none of your concern!" Prowl glared, unable to keep prevent his wings twitching in annoyance "Do you interrogate everyone you meet? Primus."

"Only the ones I'm trying to help!" Jazz snarled, matching his glare. "Primus! Why are you so stubborn!"

"Me? Stubborn? Oh _you_ are one to talk!"

 

All in all it took _far_ too long to reach his quarters. By that time his legs were audibly creaking and trembled beneath his weight even though he was leaning on Jazz far harder than he had ever intended to. Primus, this was pathetic. But at least this exercise would help his legs function a bit better tomorrow and he could get back to his work.

Prowl onlined his optics and leaned against the wall as he keyed in the code for his room. Thank goodness they had finally made it, he was 100% completely done with this whole scenario. The door slid open quietly to reveal his small comfortable quarters and he felt much of his remaining anxiety flow out of him.

"You are joking right? Primus! Prowl, this isn't a room, it's a closet!" Jazz, overly dramatic bot that he was, all but wailed, gesturing emphatically.

It had been vorns since he'd actually _looked_ at his room. It was his space and while he knew it had indeed once been a small storage closet, that knowledge had long ago had drifted into permanent storage, just a bit of extraneous data. Now he was reminded of how small it was. How the berth, a standard size, filled up 78% of the floor space, with just a narrow walkway up one side with a small berth-side table up near the head whose three small drawers held almost all his personal possessions in all the world, the only exception being the small potted crystal that sat on top of the table.

Sudden shame flowed through him.

SharpEdge had arranged early on for Prowl to be moved to 'private quarters' to 'aid concentration', which, in reality, _was_ a spare supply closet that had a small berth crammed inside it, away from everyone else in an attempt to shame and isolate him. It has been one of the Head of Tactics' ploys to coax Prowl into compliance and while it _had_ indeed isolated him further from the other tacticians and even the rest of the base's residents, until this point he had never been embarrassed by his living conditions (even if he had been frustrated at the times early on he had stretched only to bang hands or wing tips against walls). Indeed he had taken a very personal satisfaction from SharpEdge's shock and frustration at the lack of distress the accommodations had caused his victim, especially as the frustrated Head of Tactics had worried about his petty cruelty being discovered and punished.

Now, with Jazz staring into the tiny room with a look of horror and disgust, a rush of the shame SharpEdge had always intended Prowl to suffer over this flowed over him, almost suffocating him. Prowl gritted his denta, frustrated at 'losing' to SharpEdge over this now, after so many vorns of not caring. "It may be small but it is far better than being crammed into shared quarters with a bunch of bulked up warriors. It's quiet and peaceful." He ground out quietly, his optics narrowed slightly.

"But its so _small_!"

"Yes. But as you so _eloquently pointed out before_ " Prowl growled. "So _am I_!" Primus! What had he ever seen in this mech to make him think he liked him! He could feel his sensor wings trembling with rage, which even he knew was just a cover to hide the humiliation and shame that roiled beneath. All he wanted was to hide in his pathetic tiny closet room and hide until everyone forgot he existed. He wasn't _really_  mad at Jazz, he was mad that he _cared_  what the mech thought, that the pity the ops agent directed at him cut so deep.

"We gotta fix this Prowl." Jazz said flatly, determination in every line and contour of his sleek frame.

"F-fix?" Prowl stuttered and almost growled at the other, but turned his helm away quickly, feeling the femme code edging at him as he had actually looked at the mech. He forced himself under control, emotions and code, then let out a huff, leaning against the wall with one hand as he slowly walked into his quarters. "Don't bother. Things have been like this for ages now, it isn't worth stirring up trouble over now." He said, knowing it was the sensible thing.

"Prowl, you are living in _a closet_. It _isn't right_." The other insisted, as if he was trying to explain something simple to someone stupid.

"Leave it Jazz." Prowl said flatly, using his best 'no nonsense' tone he could manage. The last thing he wanted was the spec ops agent going around trying to 'save' him from this injustice and causing problems. SharpEdge would be enraged, and _if_  by some twist of fate he _did_  end up in hot water for setting up this whole affair (less than 3.945% probability even _with_  incriminating evidence, knowing how lenient Commander GasketCap was with the Head of Tactics on account of their friendship), as Prowl's superior officer SharpEdge would be certain ensure that Prowl suffered for it too.

"But this goes agai-"

"What? The law? Army Regulations? This doesn't have anything to do with you Jazz." He said voice losing all expression as he closed the door behind him, leaning against the wall heavily.

There was a clack of metal on metal as Jazz's fingers caught the edge of the door just before it finished closing, the mech wincing at the impact on the already dented digits. "Prowl..." He said softly, voice worried and aching. His field reached out, brushing against Prowl's, trying to get a read on him, but Prowl pulled his field away from the other shivering slightly. Jazz didn't take the hint though and continued. "I have a spare berth in my quarters. Us Ops agents double up with private berth rooms in shared quarters. Since HighSpeed died I've had the whole to myself and while it is smaller than the group quarters of warriors it is still bigger than this and you'll still have privacy and quiet and whatnot."

What? Share quarters with Jazz? Panic flared through his field and his sensorwings trembled slightly, field oscillating with emotion despite his best efforts. Being trapped in such close proximity with Jazz while struggling to fix the slave code issues? Primus, but any other time he would have leapt at the chance Jazz was so gently offering. Jazz's field brushed against his, kind and worried, open and compassionate, only so spike with further worry and confusion at Prowl's panic. The tactician quickly shifted his focus to his exhaustion, letting the real tiredness he felt bottom out the other emotions as he turned to meet Jazz's hidden optics. "Jazz... It's been a long day and a long walk."

"Cummon, it will be fine, I'll take care of the paperwork and everything if that is what you are worried about." He chuckled a bit, a taint of bitterness entering his field. "I'm not just a pretty face ya'know?" Prowl's sensorwings twitched slightly, perking up in attention. He'd suspected that Jazz struggled with that, but he'd never been able to confirm it before. "I can make sure it all works out alright and stuff. I don't know... what this" Jazz gestured to the closet room, expression troubled "is all about, and I can tell it _is_  something, but whatever the reason... you shouldn't have to live like this.... it isn't... it isn't _right_ , ya know?" He said pained, and Prowl felt like his spark was melting. He wanted, he _wanted so much_ , to just say yes and go along with him. "We can get your things later, tomorrow even."

But if he went there, now especially, he'd be doomed. "Jazz..." He said softly, feeling the femme code edging at him to comply. No, he had to fight, he needed to strengthen his defenses, and... and if SharpEdge found out he'd throw a fit and Prowl wasn't ready to deal with _that_  too. "Please... my legs are hurting a lot... I can't walk any further okay?" Jazz looked startled and instantly started to droop, but Prowl needed him to back off on his own, and it _was_  true. Primus, the very thought of walking any further... he could hardly even _stand_  anymore, leaning against the wall and his cane so hard he was lucky the metal wasn't creaking. "It was sweet of you to offer Jazz but... not... not now... just... thank you... but... no... okay?"

Jazz let out a disappointed huff and then nodded, marshaling his emotions, expression going neutral. Then he gave a small wry smile. "Thanks for letting me walk you back here at least. I know... you don't really like me" And then he flashed a grin. "As odd as that is, I mean, _everyone_  likes _me_." He said half joking, half serious. "But it helped me too ya know? And it kinda seems you wouldn't have made it all the way on your own yeah?" His expression became more serious and without turning his head he scanned the inside of Prowl's tiny room, though Prowl's advanced sensors could track the movements of the hidden optics anyway. "Don't worry, I won't... tell anyone about this. I don't know what this is about, but I'll respect your privacy, don't worry." He smirked suddenly. "I wouldn't make a good agent if I couldn't keep secrets right?" He said and actually drew out a faint smile from Prowl, making the ops agent grin all the wider. The delight in his field actually embarrassed Prowl, Jazz might as well have _said_  'you have a cute smile', but he was infinitely glad that Jazz hadn't.

Prowl's expression faded and he became serious again. "Thank you." He said evenly, voice calm and serious. "For all of it."

Jazz's delight faded and his expression became slightly disappointed, clearly he hadn't liked the shift back to professionalism, and Prowl winced internally. "Yeah... well... yeah... ya know.... if you need any one to talk to about things? I'm here, ya know? I... yeah..." he fumbled with his words and nodded more to himself than to Prowl.

Prowl nodded. "Thank you." He knew Jazz meant it. He also knew how low the probability was that any such thing would ever actually happen. Jazz's spark was in the right place but Jazz was popular and social, he wouldn't ever actually _want_  to spend time with Prowl, to be friends with someone as inherently unlikable and boring as Prowl was. Once Jazz got over feeling guilty for leaving Prowl behind to be eaten by the Torquetantula things would go back to how they had always been. It was foolish to expect anything else. He'd learned that lesson the hard way, even if people _meant_  it at the time, when you went to follow up on it... after the moment had passed... Prowl did his best to keep his sorrow from expression and field. He really _did_  want to be friends with Jazz... but even if there wasn't the femme code issues making time spent together so very dangerous, they were just too... too different. It wouldn't work anyway. No point in grieving over something that never could have worked out anyway.

"Prowl?"

"Hm? Yes?" He'd lost track of things again. He frowned slightly, leaning against the wall tiredly, legs creaking softly in protest.

"Just... um... sleep well I guess. See you around." Jazz said awkwardly.

Prowl nodded. "Yes, see you." He said and closed the door. Yes, he would see Jazz. From a distance. Watching him orn after orn, until the mech was moved on to his next location, moved around as special ops agents always were sooner or later. It was beautiful and bittersweet, and he wished, more than anything else, that he didn't have that horrible femme code tangling up his code because then at least he could have taken Jazz up on that offer of the spare room, and been around the mech at least, had a low key friendship of that sort, as roommates...

Prowl hobbled over to his berth and half collapsed on it exhausted. The pain in his legs lessened immediately. Hopefully they would repair enough overnight to function sufficiently for him to get back to work at least. He huffed tiredly, thinking of Jazz, letting himself imagine all the things that could have been. It was actually kinda nice to be able to blame things not working out on the femme code than having to be eventually rejected outright, or have things slowly fall apart later on from being too boring. Yes. Think of the positives, and do not mourn for what never could have been possible anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lovely Arts! I got this months ago but no post mean no show. I HOPE YOU LIKE!
> 
> Patches, Code Specialist/Field Medic 3rd Class  
> Stationed GasketRun Autobot Base.
> 
> Art by FoxTamer, aka BlueStreak the Catalyst


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